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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / A hand me down dress from who knows where

A hand me down dress from who knows where

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Bobo summarized: protesting is hard, let’s go make third parties. A sad effort, since Bobo doesn’t usually crib from D-listers like Matt Miller. Also too, Bobo says some crazy shit that may irritate even the most Vichy liberal tote-baggers.

Relatedly, Kthug asks:

A question to which I think I know the answer: A number of my colleagues in the commentariat write longingly about the need for a “centrist” who will propose doing what needs to be done — combine short-run stimulus with long-term measures that will reduce the deficit.

So, will any of them notice that, according to the CBO score (pdf), Harry Reid’s version of the American Jobs Act does exactly that?

If the establishment can’t find a clear path to making the Mittster king-for-life, they’ll double down on Bloomberg-Bayh. To do anything else would be too partisan!

Reader Interactions

64Comments

  2. 2.

    El Cid

    The “centrists” referenced by the Krug-Man are not, in fact, interested in policies which combine short-term stimulus and long term deficit reduction. So if they read the CBO and found that Reid’s version of the AJA did that, it wouldn’t change their mind.

    If a plan came out that carried out the more important goal of conservatizing the Democratic Party further and isolating any degree of “liberal” (i.e., favoring the majority if not, OMG, working people) policy interest remaining, well, then, they’d think about it.

  3. 3.

    jl

    Bobo says that the effects of a financial transfer tax would be marginal. What a crock. I guess that line was in the talking point fax of the day. Calling it commie or job killer has not worked, so try to sweep it under the rug.

    Bobo is right that the most radical people are the most boring. You have to be a little boring when dealing the a restless and defiant mass of lesser people, so they don’t notice as you try another stealthy reach around for their wallet parts.

  4. 4.

    Mark S.

    Wow, that was horrible even for a Bobo column! I love how he dismisses the OWS proposals as “marginal”, but orgasms over Matt Miller’s bold proposals to slash corporate taxes and aggressively use market forces to bring down health care costs.

  6. 6.

    BGinCHI

    How’s it feel to be a minority Bobo? You guys have money and nothing else.

    Enjoy the dustbin of history motherfucker.

    +3, maybe more.

  7. 7.

    Paul

    Seven states this year have passed laws requiring strict photo ID to vote, and similar measures were introduced in 27 other states.

    I assume the states have to issue these ID cards free of charge. I wonder what the cost is to do so? I would surely contribute to a get out the vote campaign to help people afford and navigate the process.

  10. 10.

    Short Bus Bully

    Harry Reid is not Himbo enough. If there’s no male pr0n involved in the Savior of the Land than the GOP just ain’t interested.

    Policies are for wimps. It’s the sheer manliness of the man that makes budgets come into line with spending! They just wave their engorged member at the libruls and other pansies and AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!!

  11. 11.

    David Koch

    aggressively use market forces to bring down health care costs

    I love it when the invisible hand gives me a reach around.

    Also too, I love it when the “market forces” the taxpayer to give me a bailout.

    Free markets, bitches! I got my market for free!

  15. 15.

    mclaren

    From the 12 September issue of The New Yorker:

    Not only do [pundits like Tom Friedman and David Brooks] propose, as a way to arrest the decline, a third party, with no clear policies, programs, popular constituency, or potential leaders; they also present every problem as one confronted by a uniform “we.” Friedman and Mandelbaum [and Brooks] want their countrymen to face the future without first facing the facts about their countrymen…

  18. 18.

    Sly

    Why can’t we stop all this partisan bickering and just put conservatives in office?

    Humanity will not be free until the last king rich huckster is strangled with the entrails of the last priest Very Serious Person.

  19. 19.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @jrg:

    Weeeellll, that was an image I didn’t really need. Might as well make it worse for everyone else.

    Scene: filming of Meet The Press. David Brooks is fellating himself.

    Brooks: “Well, (slurp), the problem with our economy (lick-lick-lick) is too many people dependent on (lick-slurp) outdated liberal paradigms (SLUUUUUUURP), uh, excuse me for a moment.”

  20. 20.

    Sly

    @Mark S.:

    Wow, that was horrible even for a Bobo column! I love how he dismisses the OWS proposals as “marginal”, but orgasms over Matt Miller’s bold proposals to slash corporate taxes and aggressively use market forces to bring down health care costs.

    The not entirely subtle dig at adbusters being anti-semitic was also a nice touch.

    I think that when Sartre opined that “Hell is other people,” he was envisioning an eternity spent in the audience of the Aspen Ideas Festival.

  21. 21.

    Thoughtcrime

    @Sly:

    Please! Please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion! Let’s not bicker and argue about who fucked over who.

  23. 23.

    JCT

    @Paul: Yes, I’ve been waiting for some grassroots organization to do this. It’s a two-fer, save folks from being disenfranchised and get them riled up to vote in one shot.

  25. 25.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Shorter David Brooks:

    It’s absurd to blame our problems on the 1 percent at the top– it’s too small a group! Since there are so many more people in the 99 percent than in the 1 percent, all of our problems must be their fault. It’s just simple logic!

    Also here’s a fun one, jobs head for the Obama administration being interviewed on 60 minutes:

    Immelt: I want you to root for me. You know, everybody in Germany roots for Siemens. Everybody in Japan roots for Toshiba. Everybody in China roots for China South Rail. I want you to say, “Win, G.E.”

    Stahl: Do you not see any reason that maybe the public doesn’t hold American corporations up here in the highest…

    Immelt: I think this notion that it’s the population of the U.S. against the big companies is just wrong. It’s just wrong-minded and when I walk through a factory with you or anybody, you know, our employees basically like us.

    Head meet desk. I’m sorry but that’s just denial.

    That’s really depressing. I’d love to think that at least they get what’s going on, and have a clue about why. Apparently not.

    Yes, everyone here in France gets behind French corporations for the most part, but they haven’t robbed the citizens completely blind, at least not completely, or not yet. The CEO doesn’t make hundreds and hundreds of times what the workers make. And unions are a long tradition, and strikes are seen as a right, no matter what company you work for, not a criminal act.

    Sorry, you can scream Firebagger all you like, this is just ridiculous. At least answer the question and show that you know the problem exists, rather than spewing happy talk cooked up by messaging central. Out of touch and living in la la land.

  28. 28.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Thoughtcrime:

    That reminds me-did those Billionaires for Bush/Billionaires for Wealthcare people break up or something? You’d think they were made for an opportunity like this.

  29. 29.

    Paul

    @JCT: Yes, exactly. My original post was unclear, though, I meant to say why isn’t anyone pointing out the actual cost to the state of combating a nonexistent problem and what can we do to help the disenfranchised exercise their rights?

  32. 32.

    hhex65

    I find even an extra twang of sad delight in this post due to the fact that Maureen Tucker is a certified Teabilly now.

  39. 39.

    Xenos

    @Bill E Pilgrim: As to French corporations, one can go to even discount stores here in Luxembourg and find pots and pans, small electronics, household appliances and such that are made in France. Given the good quality of these products they are not more expensive than the junk Americans buy from China.

    But by and large, I can’t find much in the way of Chinese junk in the stores here. You can get good quality goods, like the better quality LG refrigerators or phones, but not the junk. Obviously, the merchandisers are not dictating the trade policies in Europe. Many of the profits that now go to Wal-Mart in the states are going to French workers in the French stores.

  43. 43.

    Linda Featheringill

    So, with police raids on occupy locations nationwide, it looks like a nationally coordinated attack.

    Federally mandated? Or cooperation among states? Or just individual cities?

  44. 44.

    MikeJ

    @Spaghetti Lee: In Boston they tried to expand into a second park, one that just had expensive landscaping done. So that would explain the timing there.

    In Seattle, the mayor gave permission for protestors to stay in the park one more night, city parks commission said it didn’t matter, parks close at 10pm and called the cops. The cops are ignoring the mayor. Who, to be fair, is an idiot, but in this case he’s on the good side.

  45. 45.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Linda Featheringill: Dallas police are supposed to be starting a search. They’ve got a permit to be in the park until Friday at 5 pm, but that’s contingent on proof of $1M insurance filed by 5 pm Tuesday afternoon. That’s the last I’ve been able to glean from the Twitter machine.

  52. 52.

    TenguPhule

    Why can’t we stop all this partisan bickering and just put conservatives in office? *Coffins*

    FTFY.

    We can have peace and prosperity when the 27% are worm food. And not one damn second earlier.

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    A blackened shroud, a hand-me-down gown
    Of rags and silks, a costume
    Fit for one who sits and cries
    For all tomorrow’s parties

  54. 54.

    tomvox1

    @Sly:

    Yes, this is a ham-handed bit of bait and switch by Brooks trying to invoke antisemitism to undermine the legitimacy of the protests:

    Take the Occupy Wall Street movement. This uprising was sparked by the magazine Adbusters, previously best known for the 2004 essay, “Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?” — an investigative report that identified some of the most influential Jews in America and their nefarious grip on policy.

    If that’s what Adbusters is previously best known for, I’ll eat my hat. What a predictable douche.

  55. 55.

    Bruce S

    Didja notice that Brooks column was so bad, they closed the comments after only 31 – typefied overwhelmingly by judgements like “hogwash”, “straw man”, etc in the context of thoughtful critiques opposing Brooks and siding with OWS. I’ve never seen a NYT’s column’s comments shut after just 31. But it looked to be a bad day for David. I guess his editors decided to spare him the embarrassment.

    He also played the “anti-semitism” card against the Wall Street protestors, which seems pretty creepy even for Brooks.

  56. 56.

    Bruce S

    #54 – tomvox1: aside from that being an absurd line about Adbusters, Brooks wildly mischaracterized the article in question. It wasn’t about the spectrum of “influential Jews in America” but descriptive specifically of the neo-conservative movement elite, who had been the major players in driving the Bush administration’s “strategy” of invading Iraq using false links to 9/11. It was by the editors’ admission a bit provocative, but it was also frankly quite fair in making plain the degree to which they were a lobbying – and governing – faction heavily invested in Israel’s Likud Party.

  57. 57.

    JGabriel

    DougJ:

    A sad effort, since Bobo doesn’t usually crib from D-listers like Matt Miller.

    No, he usually inspires them.

    .

  59. 59.

    ChrisB

    @Bruce S:

    I’ve never seen a NYT’s column’s comments shut after just 31. But it looked to be a bad day for David. I guess his editors decided to spare him the embarrassment.

    And yet Brooks’ column was warmly praised this morning by Richard Haas on, you guessed it, Morning Joe. Predictable.

  60. 60.

    Bruce S

    I hate Richard Haas. And his sidekick at CFR, disgusting Dan Senor.

    You have to pretty much be an insider douchebag to even get invited onto Morning Joe. Jeffrey Sachs is probably the sanest, most thoughtful guy who is a regular and he fucking helped emiserate the Russian people even worse than Brezhnev and company had managed. Morning Joe actually pisses me off worse than those morons at FOX News because it has some currency beyond the geriatrics, illiterates, the terminally bitter and the insane.

  62. 62.

    Thoughtcrime

    @Ben Cisco:

    Thanks. I have a couple suggested tweaks for the design:

    1. Elephant sucking up $$$$$$ like a vacuum hose through its trunk. Alternatively, the elephant could be holding upside down a 99%’er with his trunk, squeezing his money out of his pockets.

    2. Layout the words this way:

    Greedy
    One
    Percent

    with cap letters larger and in red with other letters a different color.

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