When I was on blog vacay, reading establishment commentary, what struck me most was how incredibly, and inexplicably, smug everyone was. What are Richard Cohen and Frank Bruni and Charles Blow and Anne Applebaum so proud of? They’re widely mocked third-rate practitioners of a minor literary form in a dying industry.
But they’re not nearly as smug as the wingerati. These pictures of James Taranto (via), Wayne Root (via), and Robert Stacy McCain (via) say more about the state of modern conservatism than a thousand books about Burke and Oakeshott ever will.
jl
Smug, perhaps. But experts in self parody. You should give credit where credit is due, Mr. DougJ.
Have you not learned from the sad example of the Disgraced harry Reid? Last seen running back to Henderson with his tail tucked between his legs?
Edit: can’t resist cataloging.
Rip off of Dale or Dwayne, or whoever from Redstate Update, guy turns himself into a rather minor appendage in a toy truck add, and total rip off of Obama poster. Nice tries guys. I find their work interesting and look forward to new masterworks as they are added to their portfolios.
redshirt
I got laid off today. I feel as prelude to a stock movement. Damn those Galtian Masters!
BGinCHI
They’re like Fascists but without the style.
DougJ
@redshirt:
Shit, sorry to hear that.
Baud
I don’t find it inexplicable. Smugness is how they project confidence, and projecting confidence is how they get people to vote against their self interest and believe things that have no basis in reality. Conservatism at its core consists of creating various hierarchies of cults of personalities.
BGinCHI
@redshirt: Someone should do one of those jobs threads again. Been a while.
redshirt
I don’t want a job. I want to live!
Baud
@redshirt:
That sucks.
scav
@redshirt: Ouch ouch ouch and very sorry for you.
redshirt
Thank you all.
It’s all so random and I can’t even explain – I just completed the most awesome job of my career. I built a state of the art IT for a high tech company. And yet, somehow, here I am – laid off.
I’ve never been laid off/cut/anything my entire life. It’s really weird.
Zagrobelny
Sure, I hate the rest of those guys, but why do we not like Charles Blow? Educate me.
Linda Featheringill
@redshirt:
I’m so sorry. That is very painful.
The Moar You Know
@redshirt: Hellfire.
A. Sorry.
B. On a Tuesday? Who does that?
vheidi
@redshirt:
Sorry to hear that must be very disorienting-
trollhattan
No idea who the hump in the middle is, but the pose in front of the vastly devalued mcmansion reminds me of this invaluable Andy Borowitz quote: “General Motors’ decision today to stop manufacturing Hummers has struck at the heart of the group who loved the vehicles most: America’s assholes.”
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@redshirt: That sucks. Familiar territory for me; Got sacked in ’04 and it took almost two years to find anything at all, and two more to find something worth a damn. All I can say is keep your head up and keep pushing; don’t let the bastards get you down.
slag
@redshirt: That is a huge bummer. It must be incredibly disorienting, and there’s probably not a lot that people can say to make it better. Though I hear it does get better.
PZ
Read Tyler Cowen’s blog-the smugness at liberals is just dipping off the screen. Watch any tv discussion where Paul Krugman is debating a winger-they can’t go one debate without having an “oh, I just disproved a Nobel Laurette” look or statement. Of course, then he disproves them but that’s another story. Even watch a Ron Paul interview. He always has a moment where he goes on some tangent about how some minor detail is a “gotcha” moment for his opponents (the best was when he pointed out air traffic controllers in France were privatized and that somehow disproved the idea state-run services can work. I can’t remember what specific interview was from but an easily findable one would be when he was on Piers Morgan debating abortion.)
Smugness is key to the conservative point of view-I remember this from the College Republicans at my school. It didn’t seem like they were motivated by some great principles about free enterprise or country or God-it was because they thought all those lefty students and professors were dumber than they were. It is a sense of superiority they have for no particular reason. You see it in Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney-they believe they’re geniuses. However, you know what they say-pride comes before the fall…
Maude
@redshirt:
IT is weird. They just tossed you out like a tissue.
Susan Hayward and I can’t remember the name of the movie.
trollhattan
@redshirt:
Well that just stinks. BTDT 3X myself, wish I had advice but I do not. Each time was unique.
Good luck!
SiubhanDuinne
@redshirt: Oh gosh, so sorry to hear that. Hope things turn around for you very quickly.
hitchhiker
Since we cut our cable I haven’t been subjected to the smugness . . . to me it always comes across as let-them-eat-cake style indifference.
The way the punditocracy chuckles and smirks its way through the (ever-more-depressing) news is disgusting, especially if you were brought up watching a somber evening newscast with one guy who definitely did not think he was all that and a bag of chips, sitting there with his jowly face and ordinary clothes, telling you plainly what happened while you were at school or at work.
I actually miss those guys. This two and a half minute clip from hulu, captured about the first Earth Day in the spring of 1970, shows what I mean. Compare this thing to any of the smug, self-satisfied pukes we depend on today.
The ending comment is — in retrospect — pretty much heartbreaking.
SiubhanDuinne
@Maude:
You mean the quote “I want to live!”?
I think the movie was called I Want to Live!
Murc
… that first one is Taranto? Damn.
I saw it and immediately thought it was Hitch.
Ben Franklin
Smug Endomorphs—I remember a line from Lion in Winter….
You love him like a glutton loves his lunch
WaterGirl
@redshirt: That completely sucks. The good news is that there’s not really a stigma anymore, the bad news being that it happens so often now that people don’t wonder what you did to get fired or wonder what’s wrong with you.
Your big state of the art IT project under your belt you should be a wonderful addition to your resume. Though I hate to even say that word because I hate hate hate doing resumes and applying for jobs.
When you get ready, though, if you aren’t crazy about your resume, here’s a great website for tips and examples of resumes and cover letters. I know they have some for IT – top level positions and also in the trenches, as I recall.
Edit: Well, shit. I just went to the website to post the URL, and they have revamped the website and only have links to professional services for creating websites. I did find that I had saved the files to my computer at some point, so I could send them to you if you are ever interested. Just make a note of my name and send an email to Anne Laurie
Of course, if you got the awesome IT job you just lost, you probably already have an awesome resume…
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@redshirt: I was put on involuntary part time status in April, apparently because I’m a cost, not an asset. First time for me, too.
scav
Random impressions.
Top. Truman Capote, after the bloom had faded.
Middle: cut rate Oswald Mosley wannabe.
Bottom: CPA, hobby Barbershop Quartet.
Maude
@SiubhanDuinne:
That’s the one. It is a great sob story.
She didn’t live.
The Moar You Know
Smug, pasty white, entitled jerks.
capybroa
@hitchhiker: Another striking thing about that clip is when Jacob Javits gets up in front of Wall Street and says that we shouldn’t spend too much time battling pollution – because we also need to fight poverty, racial tensions, hunger, end disparities in health care, and other things. I know he was from New York and so part of a different breed, but to hear any nationally prominent Republican talk like that (to hear ANY national politician talk like that) is a sad reminder of how things have changed.
Judge Crater
You really have to wonder whether we are at the “let them eat cake” moment in history -when the aristocrats smirk as they look out of their carriages as they ride to Versailles.
How long can the center hold when the game is tilted so dramatically against the majority of the country? Smugness is the canary in the coal mine.
JoyfulA
@redshirt: Bummer!
When you’re ready to start looking, tell us where and what.
Violet
Oh my gosh. That last STACY poster. He looks like Hitler. Did I just Godwin the thread by saying that? But he does. The shadowing gives him the little mustache. Ugh.
PZ
I left my job last year because my boss had lied to me about benefits and wasn’t paying me on time.
If only there was a movement that could stand up for people at work. A movement that would recognize our…labor or something like that. People could come together and form some sort of…I don’t know, what’s the right word…confederacies?
Omnes Omnibus
@Judge Crater:
Those people aren’t aristocrats; they just think they are. Petit bourgeois proto-fascists is more like it.
Violet
@redshirt: So sorry to hear that. BTDT too. It totally sucks. I hope you got some good severance. Don’t forget to apply for unemployment. Someone had to remind me of that, so I always mention it when someone’s in that sucky position.
Judge Crater
@Omnes Omnibus: I should have put aristocrats in quotes.
eemom
effin Rod Stewart, srsly? Where WAS this blog vacay?
As for the emmessemm clowns, meh. Right now I am more fixated on the ever-expanding ranks of suckage of our so-called “liberals” pissing on Harry Reid. God fuck them all, every one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Judge Crater: I figured that you did air quotes when you typed it, but I just wanted to be sure. Plus, I liked my phrase.
khead
You have to (cough, cough) be a degenerate to really appreciate the douchebag that is Wayne Allyn Root.
DougJ
@eemom:
I found that almost too depressing to consider. Even the liberal Kevin Drum.
ChrisNYC
Wayne Allyn Root is a libertarian, NOT a conservative. As we’ve all been told so often by libertarians, that distinction is absolutely vital. Credit where credit is due and all.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@redshirt: So sorry to read that news.
@trollhattan: Or, as aptly noted on texts from last night:
Ben Franklin
@DougJ:
Even the liberal Kevin Drum.
He’s a nice enough guy, but we know how his type fares in a Hobbesian dystopia. Mother Jones used to be like Ramparts. Now, it’s Politico.
amk
teh librul media.
Richard
Where are their assault weapons in those shots? You can’t be a true patriot without one.
Joseph Nobles
@DougJ: Yes, isn’t it just awful when a Democratic leader breaks a spear off in Romney’s ass and then starts beating him with the splintery end? I’m just mortified.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Standing on your ultra-macho black Humvee in front of a McMansion arms akimbo: seething with entitlement.
Epic. Fail.
redshirt, I know I’m just another random stranger offering essentially the same thoughts you’ve read up and down this post, but I wish you the best. I think next to the death of a loved one and divorce, you’re facing one of the truly big uglies….
amk
@Joseph Nobles: LOL. Loving that imagery.
gordon schumway
Listen here, you queers: William F. Buckley invented smugness about 55 years ago and conservatives since have been just following his lead.
I’ll sock you in the goddamn face if you disagree!
Calouste
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
You mean go door to door in their BMW?
Richard
I think that “liberal” Kevin Drum decided a long time ago that, for career advancement purposes, he’d better play the role of a “both sides are just as bad” centrist, with the obviously requirement that he has to sprinkle his pieces with false equivalences and other bullshit just to show how “balanced” he is.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
Hang in there.
It does seem to be random any more. One can be the best and work like a dog and still you get cut. That used to keep you employed, now it may just be a liability. Did you in anyway show up/piss off someone above you? Even if only in their imagination? I have friends who got fired after getting promotions and they did far better at their new jobs than any one had ever done before, by a significant margin.
Between religion and MBA degrees this country really is on the road to ruin. This time it’s for sure, unlike every time before.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
So Cole is in your town this evening. I do hope you have duly refrained from asking him to have a drink with you.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Calouste: Zactly.
eemom
Kevin Drum, Ta Nehisi Coates, Steve Benen, Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart — of course — and any other Reid concern trolls I may have missed are on my permanent shit list and can all suck my dick, which I will grow especially for that purpose.
g
Sorry redshirt. I’m getting laid off tomorrow.
To be fair, I’m getting told that my position will be eliminated in the FY13-14 budget. So I have a year.
Who the hell is Wayne Root? That is the ugliest-ass house I’ve seen in a long time.
Jewish Steel
@ gordon Schumway: Well played, old sport.
@redshirt: I add my feeble voice of commiseration. It sucks to get your cheese moved against your will.
gordon schumway
@Jewish Steel: Many thanks!
Citizen_X
@Violet:
My first thought, exactly.
And that idiot on the Hummer, I’d be hard pressed not to go stomping on up there, grit-covered boots and all. Then we could play “King of the hill.” Hard.
Kilkee
@redshirt: Sucks, sorry to hear it. Same thing happened to me a few months ago after 14 years of rave reviews with the same company, following on 20 years of successful private law practice. Then one day the corporate wizards decide they don’t need you. Not sure how this movie ends, but this part is no fun at all.
Joseph Nobles
@amk: That ancient Greek history class I’m taking at Open Yale Courses is coming in handy. :D
Karen in GA
Redshirt, I too have BTDT. Bunch of miserable fuckers, our corporate overlords. Wishing you better times ASAP.
moonbat
@redshirt: To paraphrase the Coen Bros. “You’re young. You’ve got your health. What do you want a job for?”
Seriously though, better luck soon.
muddy
The other day at the supermarket there was one of those big Hummers parked up front, taking its own space and half of a handicapped space. This is a small market and there are only 2 handicapped spots.
I was going to yell at the guy as he walked into the store, but then I thought better of it seeing a cop drive down the road right there, so I called the local PD. I hung out for a few minutes so I could enjoy seeing the jerk come out and try to argue about how he wasn’t really parked in the handicapped spot. Cop says to him, *no one* can really be parked there on account of you. If you don’t fit in a space, go down the the end of the line. “Asshole” kind of lingered on the air, altho the cop didn’t voice it. That’s 100 bucks to you sir.
Just Some Fuckhead
I dunno, Wayne Root looks pretty cool with the whole Johnny Cash thing going on.
Just Some Fuckhead
Aren’t you the one that wore the blue blazer with the orange shirt and brown pants, DougJ?
burnspbesq
@ChrisNYC:
Which is even worse. At least conservatives have a viable intellectual tradition that they can pretend to care about while violating every one of its principles. Libertarians have … Ayn Rand and what else?
burnspbesq
@eemom:
Isn’t there a place on Maple where you can buy one?
ETA: And no, I am not thinking of Sutton Place Gourmet.
amk
@eemom: LOL. Missed you around here.
cosima
there was a blog that had the taranto photo captioned with “my white ankle socks & flag allow me to judge you” or something like that. Still cracks me up when it pops into my head. Rude Pundit? Sadly No? Wish I could remember who posted that bit of fabulousness.
Steeplejack
@cosima:
Right here on this very blog, per the link above. (Don’t know where it came from originally.)
Another Halocene Human
@Ruckus: Whoa, Ruckus, sounds like where I work. Culture/clique is everything and there’s a fear on all levels of the organization of competence and outside knowledge.
Scott S.
@redshirt: Many sympathies, mister, and good luck on the job hunt. BTW, this is an excellent time to indulge the hell out of your hobbies — anything to keep you from dwelling solely on job-hunting. Got a book you want to write? It’s a good time to get started…
eemom
@burnspbesq:
Good heavens Burnsy, this town must have been WAY more interesting when you lived here. I can’t even fathom what you could possibly mean…..other than maybe buying some clay at the Michael’s Art Supply place and commissioning a sculpture….?
Ruckus
@Another Halocene Human:
Culture/clique is everything and there’s a fear on all levels of the organization of competence and outside knowledge.
It was one of the reasons I left my last employer 7 yrs ago this month. Without a degree showing how hard I might work and how little I might know about any particular subject I was not going any higher. This even though the evidence of my work ethic and competence were well known over my 11 years, and because my boss was bad mouthing me. I was fortunate that my office was next to the CEO and several things that happened did so in his presence otherwise I may have been gone long before I left. Never been afraid of hard work, just of hard work that I only get the shaft for. And I see by this thread there are many of us that have been shafted.
Bruce S
Fuck these guys.
Nuff Said!
Bruce S
The Wayne Root Story: “Though he wasn’t paid, Root realized the value of free publicity and building an image.
“‘I was broke and living in my father’s house, but I was walking around in pricey suits, so the world was starting to believe…'”
Hard to believe the wingnuts have produced a Donald Trump for people even stupider and lacking in class than those who believe in Donald Trump.
I’d never heard of this guy and obviously was better off.
Bruce S
@eemom:
We pass…your loss.
Joey Maloney
@eemom: Rachel’s reporting on this strikes me as praising with faint damns. Sure, she’s wagging her finger at Reid a bit, but she does it while going into loving, excruciating detail about how screwed Romney is. And she can barely contain the glee in her voice.
delosgatos
Posted this comment elsewhere too – Wayne Root looks like he played all the oompa-loompas in the redux Chocolate Factory movie.
Bruce S
@Joey Maloney:
Of course. But why would a clueless person understand that?
Derp Ferguson
@The Moar You Know:
Tuesday at 4:45 for me, I was doing 3 jobs for my co.
cosima
Thanks for filling the holes in my obviously failing memory, steeplejack. So much fabulousness here that it’s hard to keep up. The caption for that photo so eloquently captured the thought-processes of the 27%. Not that there aren’t politically enlightened men out there with white ankle socks, but my experience has been that fashion sense is a by-product of political enlightenment for some. Or at least a spouse with a smidgen of fashion sense. Not so much for the 27%.
redshirt
@Ruckus: Yes, I did not sufficiently kiss the ass of two Masters of the Universe in particular, and I suspect one of them is behind my departure for personal reasons, which they mask with the term “layoff” since there’s no substance behind the move.
Oh well. It’s done and I have no intention/stomach for fighting it.
Thanks once more to everyone for the kind words. In many ways this is a blessing for me as I do have many plans of my own that I am now eager to begin. Off to the next adventure!
WereBear
@redshirt: That sucks. Did you become too expensive?
Happened to me once; they loved what I did so much they kept giving me raises. Then the company made some rocky decisions, and instead of talking pay cut with me like REAL MEN they started a Gaslight kind of thing, disparaging my work and encouraging my co-workers to treat me rotten.
I caught on before I scheduled therapy, and I made them fire me, so I could get unemployment; of course they did it during a downturn, and I needed it, I knew that.
Can you cudgel a good recc out of them?
WereBear
@Maude: The true story is even more sobby.
Yes, she did pistol whip an old woman to death; that turns out to have been true, despite what the movie said.
But she’d been a thrown away child whose attempts at a normal life kept foundering. Drugs and prostitution and bad companions and murder.
By all accounts, it was the one act of violence she’d ever committed in her life.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
About a week after I had given notice the CEO, only half in jest told me that I still work for him and he can fire me. Told him to go ahead. Pretty fucking please. Then I can get unemployment and a weeks pay for every year I’ve been there. He gracefully declined. I gracefully left.
Harry
I’m having a hard time feeling sorry for *anyone* in IT. At this time it’s one of the only employment areas with a shortage of skilled workers.
redshirt stands a much better chance of getting another job then 90% of the unemployed.