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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / That’s a lot of totebags, my friend

That’s a lot of totebags, my friend

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Can’t blame this one on the Galtians, it was the invisible hand of Snooze Hour-watching book-buyers that financed this caper:

Price: $3.95 million

Details: The New York Times op-ed columnist and wife Sarah are trading up — from their longtime home near Bethesda’s Burning Tree Club to a century-old (exquisitely renovated) five bedroom, four-and-a-half bath house in Cleveland Park. It includes a two-car garage, iron and stone fence, generous-sized porch and balcony, and what appear to be vast spaces for entertaining. The timing seems to have been right: After only a few days on the market, their old place (which also boasts five bedrooms) is under contract for $1.6 million.

With a little more Burkean modesty, we could all live this well.

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  3. 3.

    beltane

    Meh, it’s nothing like the palace Tom Friedman calls home. Being #1 Wanker of the Decade does have its perks.

  5. 5.

    MikeJ

    1.6 isn’t horribly high for the area (although by no means cheap). I never thought of Cleveland Park as particularly ritzy. Of course the girl I dated that lived there was right after the girl that lived in Potomac.

  6. 6.

    Suffern ACE

    Meh. He’s his generation’s Hemmingway or Emerson or Thoreau or whatnot, and all of them had nice digs, too.

  9. 9.

    General Stuck

    Pfft! That’s nothin’ . You want some rich white wingnuts cred?

    Mitt Romney wants to use his past success in the private sector to help drive the nation’s economy forward. But Romney’s personal fleet of vehicles will move at a luxurious descent from the comfort of their own private elevator in Romney’s new California home. Politico reports that Romney’s proposed renovations for his California beachfront property, located in the La Jolla community of San Diego, include a car lift for his four on-site cars and 3,600 square feet of underground living space. He’s even spent more than $20,000 on a lobbyist to help expedite the approval process through the city government.

    Brooks is a piker in comparison.

  11. 11.

    Citizen_X

    @Suffern ACE: Seriously. You know how pricey the real estate is around Walden’s Pond these days?

    (PS: Yes, I know it’s a park now.)

  12. 12.

    Svensker

    I have to go to bed now, but the title and kicker on this post made me very happy. Sweet dreams!

  13. 13.

    honus

    @MikeJ: First job I had after graduating college in 1977 was breaking concrete off the foundation of a house in Potomac so they could parge the basement walls. It was 20,000 square feet, two bedrooms. Oh, and five bedrooms for the servants.
    I always liked that little grocery store in the town there. I’d be buying beer in my dirty jeans and denim jacket, and the woman ahead of me in line would be wearing mink. The locals never failed to speak.

  14. 14.

    schrodinger's cat

    Bobo has an absolutely stupid column, that will appear in tomorrow’s NYT. Lots of gibberish about the economy, which makes little sense, but sounds vaguely important. He also names drops (Raghuram Rajan, of University of Chicago). A whole lot of BS in 500 words or so. I don’t know why I don’t find any other punditubbie quite as loathsome as Bobo, not even pompous Mr Friedman.

  16. 16.

    DougJ, Head of Infidelity

    @burnspbesq:

    I will check it out.

    In a bizarre coincidence, almost this very second I was reading an Inspector Rebus book where he was grilling a man named “Robert Baird”.

  18. 18.

    James Gary

    It’s a good thing that the newspaper industry is doing so splendidly well right now. Otherwise one would be given to wonder why the NYT is spending the kind of money that could be used to fund actual journalism and giving it to David Brooks so he can buy palatial estates.

  21. 21.

    schrodinger's cat

    Why do we need columnists anyway, why do we need Bobo and his ilk to pontificate about subjects they have little understanding of? Another gem, from the column, Ryan and Romney are serious.

  22. 22.

    Hill Dweller

    @General Stuck: Speaking of Willard, I saw where, during an interview with a local Ohio station, he took credit for the auto bailout.

    Willard literally has no shame.

  24. 24.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    Hmmph. Democrats don’t want anyone to live this way. Republicans want EVERYONE to live this way.

  25. 25.

    RyanWScott

    I’d write material for Charlie Pierce to make fun of every week for like half of what this guy makes.

  26. 26.

    RalfW

    @Brother:

    They want everyone to live in suburban D.C.? Really? I thought Washington was the throne of Satan, what with all that evil gubmit about.

  27. 27.

    burnspbesq

    @RalfW:

    Let ’em all live in Coto de Caza, a gated enclave of multi-million-dollar McMansions so far back in the canyons that if there’s ever a serious fire out that way the county will leave them to fend for themselves while it protects densely populated Rancho Santa Margarita and Mission Viejo.

    The Randian conundrum: when you most need public services, you won’t get them, because you’ve spurned them.

  29. 29.

    cmorenc

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I don’t know why I don’t find any other punditubbie quite as loathsome as Bobo, not even pompous Mr Friedman.

    Let me help you out a bit here.
    Charles Krauthammer.

  30. 30.

    burnspbesq

    @Freddie deBoer:

    But is he within walking distance of the Applebee’s salad bar?

    Nope. Nearest one is in downtown Falls Church.

    But he wasn’t within walking distance of an Applebee’s salad bar in Bethesda, either. In fact, there is not a single Applebee’s in all of Montgomery County. They have standards, yanno.

  32. 32.

    Suffern ACE

    @RalfW: Cleveland Park is actually in DC. In the limits of the city. Bethesda is suburban DC. Well, Bethesda would be part of DC if DC would have been allowed to expand the way other cities did. Bobo could actually take the bus or metro to work. He could bike – only pedal once in the morning since it’s all downhill. He could skateboard or use a razor, like a funky urban hipster. We’ll know in a month when he shows up on News Hour with some kind of handlebar mustache. This could be a sign of the midlife crisis he’s needed since he was 14.

  33. 33.

    DougJ, Head of Infidelity

    @burnspbesq:

    Got to go with Cohen, as the very worst, even though I agree with him more than Bobo, Friedman, or Kraut. He’s just so shallow.

  34. 34.

    Chris

    @Southern Beale:

    Well worth the read. The trigger, according to that article (which I’d heard before), was when he saw Pam Geller and the rest of the “anti-Jihadist” teabagger crowd meeting up with outright fascist European groups and realizing “there’s something really fucking wrong here.”

    The fact that those connections are being made, at the “grassroots” level, is something that shouldn’t be lost on us.

  35. 35.

    burnspbesq

    @DougJ, Head of Infidelity:

    Cohen is a worthless piece of junk, but for some reason I don’t feel the sort of visceral hatred for him that I feel for Leon Weisleiter. Cohen is just an idiot. Leon is smart enough to know better.

  37. 37.

    RalfW

    Suburb or D.C., beltway or metro, Bobo is a toffy-nosed toit and I cannot understand why anyone, particularly totebaggers, think he’s worth a shit these days.

    I say that as a some-what totebagger who, I’m chagrined to say, up till about mid-2009 watched Charlie Rose a couple times a week and thought Brooks was a sensible if priggish conservative for a quite a while. Being a liberal, I didn’t agree with him, but I thought he was, y’know, serious.

    A combination of Brooks becoming more insufferably smug+stupid, and reading BJ and other blogs regularly has opened my eyes. Not quite a Charles Johnson reversal (read the whole AlterNet peice, quite interesting).

    I can’t even bear to watch the Newshour anymore. Is the useless caricature Democrat with the old-man jowls, dangly earlobes and extremely flabby 70s Democratic ideals still opposite Bobo on there?

  38. 38.

    gaz

    If only I could get so much cash for spewing bullshit maybe a couple of days a week.

    Apparently I lack the appropriate Burkean Modesty(tm)

    Or maybe they pay him so well because he discovered the parallel universe where applebees has a salad bar.

  40. 40.

    David Koch

    Can’t blame this one on the Galtians

    Actually, I do.

    The totebaggers play a role, but the cash is mostly from corporate welfare.

    it’s a tandem.

    the totebaggers give him visibility, which he then trades on, pushing the corporate view point, which then gets rewarded with paid speaking appearances at Galtian get-togethers.

  41. 41.

    amk

    Is there any other nation that is as obsessed with pundtwits as america is? right wing, left wing, center wing, fringe wing… they all have their own pundtwits spouting bilge everyday/every week and making money hand over fist in the process.

  42. 42.

    David Koch

    @honus:

    It was 20,000 square feet,

    kinda sounds like the mansion Daniel Plainview had at the end of “There Will Be Blood”. The place was so big it made Plainview feel lonely. I guess another way of putting it would be like trying on a jacket 10 sizes too big, it makes you feel small.

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    OT, but I just finished reading Frank Bailey’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Allegiance-Sarah-Palin-Tumultuous/dp/B006TQVTQS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336456850&sr=1-1“>Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin and it confirms, in spades, everything I ever suspected about her, and more. We talk about her as a grifter, and boy, does it ever get confirmed by Bailey’s memoir.

    It’s not true, though, that’s she’s lazy…about some things. If you cross her, she’ll move heaven and earth to get her revenge. What a spiteful, vindictive harpy she is.

  45. 45.

    Randy P

    Isn’t Cleveland Park where Politics and Prose is, one of my all time favorite bookstores? I often make a pilgrimage when I’m in DC. Hate to think I might be running into Brooks there now. I think of it as actually a pretty cool neighborhood. At least that stretch of Connecticut Ave. But maybe he won’t be on Connecticut with the plebes.

  46. 46.

    JGabriel

    WaPo via DougJ @ Top:

    Price: $3.95 million
    __
    Details: The New York Times op-ed columnist [David Brooks] and wife Sarah are trading up — from their longtime home near Bethesda’s Burning Tree Club to a century-old (exquisitely renovated) five bedroom, four-and-a-half bath house in Cleveland Park.

    Leaving one to wonder: how long before the state of David Brooks’ mailbox decimates Cleveland Park’s property values?

    .

  50. 50.

    Chris

    @Randy P:

    Isn’t Cleveland Park where Politics and Prose is, one of my all time favorite bookstores?

    Politics and Prose is actually a bit higher up on Connecticut Avenue.

    Last Wednesday, Paul Krugman was there to talk and man, there were enough people who came to see him to invade Normandy. Definitely a fire hazard, but hey, the guy’s worth it.

  51. 51.

    gVOR08

    I believe J. K. Galbraith said something like, ‘Shilling for the wealthy always pays better than crusading for the truth.’

  52. 52.

    Barry

    What amazes me is that he could plunk down over $3 million.

    Just what is the NYT paying him?
    Or has he gone the Friedman/Peretz route, and is living off of a rich wife?

  54. 54.

    bottyguy

    You’ll never live like common people!
    You’ll never do whatever common people do!
    You’ll never fail like common people!
    You’ll never watch your life slide out of view,
    and dance, and drink, and screw!
    Because there’s nothing else to do

  55. 55.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)

    Ahhh crap, there goes the neighborhood. I live in Cleveland Park (in a one-bedroom condo, not a 5 bedroom house), but I just bought a house in the leftist enclave of Takoma Park, MD so I won’t have to put up with Mr. Brook’s presence for long. I bet his house is on Newark 1-3 blocks off Connecticut Ave, FWIW. That’s where the largest houses in Cleveland Park are.

    @MikeJ: Cleveland Park didn’t used to be ritzy, but it has become so. You can’t touch a 3 bedroom 2 bath house here for anything less than about $1 million anymore. This city is becoming disgustingly ritzy all over NW (and many other neighborhoods to boot) – my guess is all the well paid shills for those “independent” Citizen United facilitated groups are moving to town (which, if you think about it, David Brooks is sort of one of those). Plus, defense contracting. Everyone with money now wants to live close in because traffic has gotten so terrible.

  56. 56.

    var

    Evidence that taxes aren’t a motivator. DC has a higher tax rate than Montgomery county. He’ll pay 2% more to Vincent Gray than he did to his Montgomery county folk.

  57. 57.

    Nina

    I grew up near Bethesda Country Club, in Carderock Springs. My parents still live there. I just did a realtor.com search for the area code (20817) and 1.6 million is on the 6th page of real estate listings.

    Actually, that’s pretty low for the neighborhood. There’s probably a lot of things wrong with it if they’re letting it go for that little.

  58. 58.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Chris:

    The trigger, according to that article (which I’d heard before), was when he saw Pam Geller and the rest of the “anti-Jihadist” teabagger crowd meeting up with outright fascist European groups and realizing “there’s something really fucking wrong here.”

    The main rebranding of European white supremacist groups was that they decided to drop anti-semitism as part of their explicit brand identity and go with “anti-jihad” instead. That was obvious to people who were paying attention, but Pammy’s Bigotpalooza made it blatant.

    Given the crucible that he created with LGF, I still think that Johnson has a fairly large penance to fulfil before I’m prepared to pay attention to him.

  59. 59.

    Ohio Mom

    I wonder if David & Sarah are doing the empty-nesters-move-back-into-the-city thing. I remember a number of years ago Brooks mentioning his kid’s bar mitzvah (and the sinking feeling I got realizing I was sharing a religion with him). Anyway, that kid ought to be out of the house by now.

  60. 60.

    El Cid

    Although you might at first think that this moderate palatial estate might suggest that David Brooks is somehow less in touch with the American good old fashioned working middle class zeitgeist that he has mastered, it’s actually the opposite, for some reason or other, I’m sure. Check with him or Slate to find out why.

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