David Brooks is an embarrassment — not news, I know. But while he’s always been glib, his intellectual sloth has only deepened as over and over again, reality has refused to accord his views the respect he believes they deserve.
Case in point: today’s column, titled “The Anti-Party Men: Trump, Carson, Sanders and Corbyn”.
The entire thing is a dog’s breakfast — centered on a cynically ahistorical description of political parties, an argument that, in effect, the Republican Party’s inability to rein in its crazies is caused by a rise in “assertive individualism.” That, of course, blissfully omits all that uncomfortable record of explicit radicalization built into the fabric of Nixon’s southern strategy and its sequels.
But that’s Brooks’ problem: he aims to dismiss Trump, and to a lesser extent Carson, as betrayers of an imagined American ideal, and he doesn’t want to confront what their current success says about the Republican Party as a whole. So, enter Bernie Sanders.
The problem Brooks has there is that Sanders is not the same type of candidate as the GOP’s id-sters: he’s running a conventional Democratic campaign, drawing on a conventional subset of the Democratic base, and he’s advancing ideas that are, for the most part, absolutely within the Democratic party mainstream. Brooks entire anti-party indictment of Sanders is that he is an independent who merely caucuses with the Democrats.
That’s weak tea, which Brooks seems to sense, which may account for this, the straw of nonsense that breaks this column’s back:
These four anti-party men have little experience in the profession of governing.
…
These sudden stars are not really about governing. They are tools for their supporters’ self-expression. They allow supporters to make a statement, demand respect or express anger or resentment. Sarah Palin was a pioneer in seeing politics not as a path to governance but as an expression of her followers’ id.
Let’s review: Carson and Trump: no experience in any elected office.
Sanders: four terms (eight years) as mayor of Burlington, VT. Member of the United States House of Representatives for sixteen years. Currently a second term United States Senator with almost nine years on the job. Among other roles, he serves now as the ranking member of the Budget Committee — one of the big three committees that have jurisdiction over taxes, appropriations and budget policy.** The ranking member, of course, is the senior member of the minority party on a given panel, which is to say that Bernie Sanders is currently serving as the Democratic party’s lead force on the committee that articulates the large scale policy structure of federal spending.
But David Brooks has said that Bernie Sanders has little experience in the profession of governing, and Brooks is wants to appear to be an honorable man.
Seriously: Sanders has managed departments that plow snow and fill potholes; he’s handled constituent services for the state of Vermont for more than two decades. He’s caucused with Democrats and carries a full portfolio of the bread-and-butter of legislative work, the committee duties where so much of the legislative process really happens. Whatever you think about his politics, his self-identification, his campaign, one thing is simply a fact: Bernie Sanders has spent most of his adult life immersed in the daily practice of governing. (And his supporters, pace Our David, include among their number those who are less interested in self-expression than in Sanders’ emphasis on the need to reform the US economy.)
Put it another way: Sanders has a deep history of explicit policy experience behind him, a set of views and arguments that inform an extensive body of proposals in his presidential campaign. Trump and Carson? Not so much.***
Which is to say: Brooks is not just wrong here, he’s guilty of one of two sins here: either he’s utterly, contemptuously, slothfully ignorant, or he knows Sanders’ record, and he’s chosen to hide that knowledge from his readers.
I could go on (you know I could) — but there’s no point. When a piece of work is based on a false premise, that’s pretty much it. An interesting question would be why the challenges to perceived front-runners in our two parties are so different in kind and quality. But actually engaging that mystery (not!) would require explicit acknowledgement that the Democrats remain the kind of civic institution, a coalition across a range of interests, backgrounds and views that Brooks extols, while the Republican party, increasingly, does not. And if the two parties are not the same, what’s a faux-centrist water carrier for the GOP elite to do?
I gotta confess to an journeyman’s complaint here. I disdain Brooks’ argument and the view he’s attempting to advance, but there’s nothing new (or terribly wrong) in that — what’s political writing for if not to dispute public life? What really gets me here is the sheer contempt the basic craft, the job of any writer making a case. Brooks’ attempt to lump Sanders into a category in which he manifestly does not belong is purely lazy.
And obvious!
And unnecessary!
Brooks could have written the entire column on Trump and Carson as case studies in the rise of iconoclasm in politics and the piece would have read fine. He wouldn’t perhaps, have been able to write the same jeremiad about “solipsistic bubbles”**** in which his adopted countrymen choose to ignore the reasoned advise of the wise men Brooks has chosen for them. Too high a price, I suppose.
*An homage to my grandfather Tom, as it happens, who once held the world record for long jump on horse. Truly. An insight into his horsemanship — and perhaps his post-dinner judgment — can be found here. Also — title updated as of 3:44 EDT to reflect what I actually meant to call the damn thing.
**It’s the weakest of the three committees involved in managing the federal budget; Appropriations and Finance have more direct power. But Budget is where the large scale policy agenda for federal spending gets its day.
***You could make the case that Carson has lots of positions, and you’d be more or less right. That said, a slogan and a paragraph do not a policy position make.
****That the phrase better describes the media village in which Brooks resides than it does most of America is a case of projection we can pass over in silence.
Image: Edward Scriven, engraving from an original by Richard Westall, “Brutus and the Ghost of Caesar,” 1802.
Omnes Omnibus
So David Brooks wrote a David Brooks column?
Barry
“I could go on (you know I could) — but there’s no point. When a piece of work is based on a false premise, that’s pretty much it. ”
There is a point to be made – that Brooks is a liar, pure and simple. He’s been a NYT columnist for many years now, and Google is known even to those guys.
Elizabelle
Including Bernie Sanders, which was idiotic even for Bobo.
Is Brooks trying to lose a portion of his totebagging audience? They might not follow him everywhere.
beltane
David Brooks is more dishonest than lazy. He actually expends quite a lot of effort in reaching the conclusions he does. This is what happens when you have to twist the facts to suit your preferred narrative.
cokane
ya that has to be the worst both sides do it ism I have seen in awhile. So sick of the Sanders-Trump comparisons. Sanders is NOT an outsider. I know he’s pushing this image as well, to help his campaign. But no way in hell could he be considered a DC outsider nor a Dem one, Socialist/independent technicality isn’t really worth a damn when you look at the man’s bio.
Sure, he’s unapologetically liberal.
dedc79
Perhaps it was always so, but so much of political “journalism” today consists of lazy writers trying to fit square pegs in round holes. Had a similar reaction to the New Yorker writer George Packer’s somewhat-more-nuanced but still-decidedly-lazy attempt to group Trump and Sanders together under the populist heading.
Cacti
I believe Sanders and Trump have some similarities that the supporters of the former wouldn’t be comfortable acknowledging.
But a lack of governing experience isn’t one of them.
Sanders has been a full-time elected office holder since 1981.
beltane
For whom does the Burkean Bell toll? It tolls for thee, Mr. Brooks.
He is probably very sad about the 41 votes for the Iran deal. This fact alone will make me savor the remainder of this lovely late summer day.
Downpuppy
The true column would be how non-establishment candidates reflect the failure of plutocratic corporatism to deliver anything at all to ordinary people.
The reason we’ll never see that column is simple : Brooks has spent his entire career as a flack for plutocratic corporatism.
You’d think this would give him pause, but after watching Tom Friedman show absolutely no self-awareness during the long, painful Iraq war, I’m confident that Brooks will go on Being David Brooks right up until nuclear annihilation.
As to the rest of the Times – they just made Elisabeth Bumiller, winner of the Wimblehack trophy as the worst reporter on the 2004 election, Washington Bureau Chief.
Nothing will change, ever. They’ll still be filing the same stuff as the bankruptcy trustees have them hauled out in their chairs.
RSA
Chuck Johnson, James O’Keefe, and David Brooks have little experience in the profession of journalism.
MattF
And Corbyn (UK politics) just gets tossed into the essay for a little ‘Wink, wink, he’s a socialist’ spice.
But yeah, Sanders is an actual politician. And Brooks is just lying.
Felonius Monk
I appreciate your cogent analysis, Tom, but why does everyone
wastespend so much time and energy castigating Brooks, when it would be, IMHO, so much easier to just ignore him. Is it possible if we all ignored him, he might just go away?Oatler.
Brooks might well end up on MSNBC, a channel devoted entirely to giving Republican pundits, disgraced and otherwise, a chance to sound off without fear of real journalists calling bullshit on them.
Chris
Shorter Brooks: Both Sides Do It.
benw
While Brooks is crap, I’ve seen the “Bernie is inexperienced” criticism all over Facebook and other social media, including some comments in this blog. It’s obviously BS, but it already exists, along with the “Bernie can’t possibly understand minorities because VT is 95% white” meme that’s trying to take off. Brooks, having no original ideas whatsoever, is just trying to stuff that already existing BS narrative into a solid serving of “both sides!” hooey.
MattF
@Felonius Monk: Unfortunate experience with previous Times columnists shows that is almost certainly not going to happen. It’s true that both Ben Stein and Bill Kristol got the pink slip, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Stein and Kristol were both careless in ways that the Times couldn’t ignore.
Brachiator
I think it was NYT columnist William Safire who once wrote that a pundit does not have to know the facts. Brooks raises the bar on total ignorance.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Thanks for the linky, Tom. I hope Lieut. T. H. Sebag-Monetfiore had a full recovery.
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
PIGL
@Barry: a liar pure and simple. You beat me to it.
Jeffro
here’s my favorite part, the conclusion (where Bobo always manages to top himself most weeks anyway)
Does not compute, David, but continue
Gee, if only one of our two political parties had someone like that…hmmm…maybe the someone currently in the Oval Office, to say nothing of both Clinton and Sanders??
He just can’t do it. He can’t embrace a Democrat (or Socialist) no matter how insane the GOP gets. Which is weird because he seems to be all into coalitions, compromises, the common good – all things anathema to the modern GOP.
Belafon
@Felonius Monk: Nope, he won’t go away. People like that never go away. And because he’s at the NYT, if you don’t respond, others will think he’s correct.
Just because someone reads the opinion pages doesn’t mean they know to treat it as opinion.
Doug
Friends don’t let friends read David Brooks.
Belafon
@Jeffro: Obama should sue him for plagarism on that second paragraph you quoted.
boatboy_srq
assertive individualism (as-SIR-tuv in-duh-VID-juh-lism): n. The complete denial that Gummint has any bearing on your life, your family, your convictions, or your prejudices, or on your disapproval of anyone else or their lifestyle/family/convictions; the tendency to resolve (otherwise litigated) disputes with placards, bullhorns and the occasional firearm. See also: Second Amendment Remedies, Family Values, Xtian Nation, etc.
Felonius Monk
@Doug:
Some friends don’t even let their enemies read David Brooks!
Roger Moore
@dedc79:
I don’t think it”s entirely wrong to call both of them populists. They’re both appealing to the masses rather than the elites, and that makes them populists. But they aren’t the same kind of populist. Sanders is a traditional left-wing populist who focuses his attention on the ways the elites take advantage of the masses (i.e. punches up), while Trump is a fairly traditional right-wing populist who focuses on The Other in the form of immigrants and foreign countries (i.e. he kicks down). When Trump does focus on the elites, it’s mostly on the political elites who have failed to deliver on their political promises rather than the economic elites who have taken advantage of the masses economically.
Calouste
Corbyn btw also has been a Member of Parliament for 32 years.
I can see of course David Brooks’ standpoint that he himself still hasn’t got a clue about his chosen profession of journalism after a similar amount of time in the job. But that doesn’t apply to everyone.
torllhattan
@Belafon:
Just think, if he goes away Douthat gets his chair. Wouldn’t that be great?
“As on every Friday, All Things Considered welcomes E.J. Dionne, Ross Douthat and Chunky Reese Witherspoon to discuss the week’s political news, including correctness and its corrosive effect on Catholic fundamentalist pharmacists.”
Calouste
@Brachiator: Brooks would say that a pundit shouldn’t know the facts. Or state the opposite of the facts.
trollhattan
@Belafon:
Just think, if he goes away Douthat gets his chair. Wouldn’t that be great?
“As on every Friday, All Things Considered welcomes E.J. Dionne, Ross Douthat and Chunky Reese Witherspoon to discuss the week’s political news, including correctness and its corrosive effect on Catholic fundamentalist pharmacists.”
lgerard
Perhaps the New York Times could petition Judge Bunning to jail Brooks for not performing his job as well
Felonius Monk
This is somewhat OT, but has anyone else seen this wonderful picture?
gratuitous
Of course Brooks has written another hash of a column. My question is whether there are any editors anymore at the Times? How does a howler like “little experience . . . in the profession of governing” in reference to Sen. Sanders slip into print?
Frankensteinbeck
A bullshitter doesn’t care about the truth, Levenson. He has a point to make. He’s probably even convinced himself. Nothing exists that does not serve that point.
Peale
@Jeffro: Ah…but you see the compromises he always seems to want most of all are the ones where the Democrats agree that there is an entitlement crisis and put an end to that dreadful social security system once and for all. The compromise is that we do so slowly as opposed to overnight.
OzarkHillbilly
@Felonius Monk: You really think a minority of a minority of a minority of a minority of a minority (in other words the BJ commentariot) ignores him the NYT will get rid of one of their most popular*(gack,gack) columnists?
*I have no idea of his popularity, he might be popular with only one person in the whole wide world, but if that person is Editor in Chief of the NYT, guess what? That said, I haven’t read any thing he has written in decades.
smintheus
Speaking of the NYT, it just installed Bush court hagiographer Elisabeth Bumiller as DC Bureau chief.
Roger Moore
@Felonius Monk:
Not as long as he has a column at the NY Times. And as long as he does, every lie he tells is going to be repeated and treated as truth by a lot of Times readers.
Felonius Monk
@OzarkHillbilly: I think you are right about the effect of ignoring him, but sometimes the columnists are there because they generate a lot of negative angst. If there was no negative reaction to what they write then they might not last too long.
burnspbesq
“Bobo’s an idiot” is no more remarkable than “water is wet.” Why does anyone still care, much less care enough to spew hundreds of words?
Move. On.
goblue72
David Brooks knows who he works for, and it ain’t us plebes. To expect different from a whore is not the whore’s fault.
OzarkHillbilly
@Felonius Monk: I was thinking the same thing, that he might be popular with the EiC precisely because he increases the amount of negative reactions. Kind of like the old adage of “When you meet a girl, it does not matter whether the impression you leave is good or bad, just so long as she remembers you.”
Belafon
Ladies, are you packing: Woman with pistol in vagina charged with unlawful carry?
Belafon
@OzarkHillbilly: He’s on NPR and is taken seriously by a whole lot of people. He isn’t going away unless his credibility is damaged.
Belafon
@Belafon: At the bottom of the article is an ad that says ‘Enter anyone’s name and see what they may be hiding.’ Bet it won’t say anything about a handgun.
rikyrah
Well according to this ESPN Outside The Lines report, Belichick would have lower level Patriots employees sneak into the opposing locker rooms, and steal playsheets.
In fact, many former New England coaches and employees insist that the taping of signals wasn’t even the most effective cheating method the Patriots deployed in that era. Several of them acknowledge that during pregame warm-ups, a low-level Patriots employee would sneak into the visiting locker room and steal the play sheet, listing the first 20 or so scripted calls for the opposing team’s offense. (The practice became so notorious that some coaches put out fake play sheets for the Patriots to swipe.)
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/13533995/split-nfl-new-england-patriots-apart
Roger Moore
@lgerard:
But he is doing his job. The job of a columnist is to sell a particular viewpoint. In his case, that viewpoint happens to be despicable and he needs to lie to do it, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t doing his job when he lies.
hells littlest angel
I don’t get the lack of institutional self-respect that the Times must have to employ a flat-out, stone-cold liar like David Brooks. It beggars belief that they don’t understand that the man is full of shit; they just don’t care.
I guess once you’ve written a few checks to Judith Miller you just stop giving a fuck about anything.
Kate Koeze
@Jeffro: I had the same reaction as Jeffro.
dedc79
@Roger Moore: Yeah, but did you follow through to Packer’s piece and look at how he framed the compare/contrast?
lgerard
Huckabee volunteers to go to jail in Davis’ place.
This seems like an excellent solution to me
http://abcnews.go.com/US/kentucky-clerk-kim-davis-set-released-jail/story?id=33601309
Chris
@Jeffro:
That’s been the enduring contradiction at the heart of the Village’s worldview since forever. They really, really, really want everyone to Just Get Along and Be Bipartisan, but they’re also completely incapable of blaming the Republicans for the absence of bipartisanship – it must be either the Democrats or Both Sides.
So every new Republican descent into absurdity is greeted with a lot of hand-wringing wondering what those big meanie Democrats could have done to hurt their feelings and make them act that way, and a lot of wondering why Obama can’t just invite Republicans to the White House for a few more dinner parties. Oh, if only he weren’t so decisive.
OzarkHillbilly
@Belafon: He has no credibility to damage.
FlipYrWhig
@dedc79:
This is becoming A Thing among both both-siders of long standing like Brooks and Packer AND anti-Clinton liberals, the same ones who claim that Occupy and the Tea Party are two sides of the same coin. Because it can be a way to say “the public mood is for outsider and populists, not insiders and corporatists, so, never mind the national polls, Clinton is as out of step with her party as Jeb Bush is with his.” David Atkins spent the weekend dancing that dance on Washington Monthly.
Sherparick
He had to include Sanders so he could be properly “both sides” in his column. That is an ironclad rule of column with any criticism of a Republican. Further, he had to drag in Corbyn from the UK”s Labor Party to balance out Carson (even though that is even more ridiculous, since, the UK is another country and Labour (to use the UK spelling) are not the American Democrats. In other words, it is absurd, but at least two Republican deviants are matched with perceived deviants on the Left.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Belafon: if his Iraq didn’t kill his credibility, it’s hard to imagine what would. Ditto Friedman who if anything was worse with his “51% for, 49% against… I must reluctantly conclude…” which was later exposed as complete bullshit by his own “suck on this!” comment.
I do think the “nobody cares!” argument underestimates the influence they have over conventional wisdom, and thus over the way “news” gets to people who are just looking/waiting for the weather and sports. After the first Obama/Romney debate, I heard Andrew Sullivan’s smeared-in-beagle poop (to quote some blogger) histrionics quoted on NPR’s morning show and one of the big network shows (GMA or Today, I can’t tell them apart). I’d be willing to bet his name recognition was probably over 50% for the NPR audience, under 10 for the network show, but all those people getting dressed and having coffee with the TV in the background heard somebody on TV saying it was an unmitigated disaster for Obama, who couldn’t defend his own record, looked weak and tired and disengaged, blah blah blah.
JPL
@rikyrah: The Patriots according to ESPN had 11 out of 12 balls under-deflated for the AFC game.
Iowa Old Lady
I heard Dick Cheney talking about the Iran deal before I quickly started my car audio book. You really can’t discredit any of these people. They’re like cockroaches.
ETA: Or alternatively, the mice in my garage who will not leave
Mike J
@efgoldman: Bing knew this woman.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
That has a lot to do with their concept of getting along and being bipartisan. Like most people, they wear big ideological blinkers, so that what they want is just common sense, while what they don’t want is the end of the world. Since they basically agree with the Republican policy program- at least the economic side- compromise means accepting what the Republicans want.
The Raven on the Hill
I think you win the “title of the day” award.
Kay
David Brooks loved the wisdom of the regular folk until they started talking about wages. Now he wants to flee back to the policy roundtable.
Too late! :)
I think he’ll survive.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: The whole Deflategate mess was way over inflated by Goodells ego and totally deflated by the judges deserved castration of that joke. It never should have happened.
the Conster
@rikyrah:
emptywheel raises some interesting questions. ESPN’s reporting sucks.
Brachiator
@Calouste:
Is this the “empty mind, perfect punditry” theory?
Belafon
@Kay: “Why not?” I’m pretty sure the Secret Service will put an end to that quicker than they did to Obama’s Blackberry.
SiubhanDuinne
Tom, I had no idea (and, actually, why should I?) that you were part of the sprawling and very impressive Sebag-Montefiore family. They fascinate me the same way so many big, branching, accomplished European and American families fascinate me. I love reading about them, reading things by them, and working out their complicated genealogies.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: I know. ESPN has no credibility.
srv
Trump has run a multi-billion dollar empire and worked extensively with federal, state and local governments for decades.
Bernie ran a metropolis of probably 20K back in the day. Trump has more employees than that. Then serving as a ranting old congressman and senator – it’s a good schtick if you can get it, but how many bills did he author and pass? Now through seniority and because his ‘I’ vote is needed, he gets a voice in spending us deeper into debt.
I want someone who earns money, the old fashion way.
Belafon
@srv: If you’re going to knock someone for not making money the old fashioned way, then you at least need to compare them properly. We all know that Trump inherited his money, so where did Bernie’s money come from?
Calouste
@srv:
You mean by being born into it?
Sondra
Bravo to your Grandfather the long jumper. I was a hunter/jumper too so I read the article. Amazing feat! It takes a horse and rider with real courage to even attempt such a jump. It also takes a horse and rider with complete trust in each other to succeed as your Grandpa Tom and his horse did.
Emma
@srv: By going bankrupt four times and borrowing from the Singapore sharks?
trollhattan
@srv:
You mean selecting the right daddy? Suppose since it worked for an unlimited litter of Bushes and now Trump, that can be the new old way (“Born on third base thinking he hit a triple.”)
Also, too, making money does not prepare one to govern from political office. The opposite can be vigorously argued to good merit.
OzarkHillbilly
@srv:
What, you actually expect people like Trump to get off his fat dead asses and actually do something productive instead of paying people to do it for them during their 3 martini lunches? Boy, are you a dreamer.
Iowa Old Lady
@srv: I’m sick of people claiming that government jobs aren’t real jobs. I taught at both a private university and a public one, and they both felt like real jobs to me.
bemused
Kim Davis in on the tv. The intro music, the crowd noise, the politicos, just ugh.
srv
@OzarkHillbilly: This is the problem with you liberals. Always wanting a micro-managing president.
Trump will delegate like Reagan did. He’s good at finding smart people.
Roger Moore
@OzarkHillbilly:
ESPN is claiming that Ballghazi is basically a makeup call for going easy on the Patriots for the earlier spying scandal. Personally, I think the spying scandal should have been enough to get Belichik at least suspended for a year, if not banned for life. Persistent and premeditated cheating like that deserves a much stronger penalty than it was given.
Belafon
@srv: And ways to sell weapons to countries on our Do Not Sell lists.
Iowa Old Lady
@bemused: Davis says she’ll continue defying the court.
I want this woman in jail.
singfoom
Brooks gonna Brook*.
(*”BR-UK” – To lie; to use the pretzeliest of logic to obtain the result one wishes; to take past events and come to the conclusion that their meaning is the direct opposite of the actual meaning)
goblue72
@srv: So your nym stands for Simpleton Republican Voter, then.
WaterGirl
@Iowa Old Lady: I want her in jail, and more.
With a salary of 80,000, that comes to over 38.00 an hour (2,080 a year). I think it would be lovely if they fine her $100 a day, with $35 a day being docked from her paycheck for her elected position. She should get NO money from her job while she refuses to do it.
Roger Moore
@Iowa Old Lady:
Lying to the judge about your willingness to comply with his orders is not a good plan. She is going to go back to jail, and she isn’t going to get out again just by promising to be good.
bemused
@Iowa Old Lady:
I want to see officers standing by her with cuffs in hand open ready to clamp on her the instant she refuses to issue a license.
What fun for the clerks, aside from Davis son, who probably wish this woman would go away and stay away. I know I would if a co-worker was making my job a nightmare.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: I hope she is back in jail before bedtime tonight.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: I haven’t been able to find any concrete information. Did the judge ask her if she would behave, and she said yes? Or did she effectively promise to be good when she took the release based on the direction from the court that she is not allowed to interfere?
gex
@Iowa Old Lady: Do you have a link to where she says she will still refuse to obey the law?
gex
@Roger Moore: She doesn’t care about lying to the judge. The sick part of this kind of Christianity is that the suffering and persecution are desired. They earn double miles towards Heaven if they suffer for their God.
Not to mention the fundraising. Every time a Christian gets thrown in jail over gay rights they get another piece of “proof” that we’re making their faith illegal. And there’s riches to be mined from that.
Tom Levenson
@SiubhanDuinne: The Sebag-Montefiore’s are a clan; I’m close to third cousins…it’s that kind of crowd. True story: when my mother let her father (Tom S-M — the Colonel, as he became) know that she had become engaged to my father, Tom went to his rabbi and blurted out “Terrible news about Rosemary!” “What?” the Chacham asked. “Is she marrying a non-Jew?” “Worse!” said my grandad-to-be. “An American!”
I say “true story.” What I mean to say is that I heard this both from my mum and the rabbi in question — but both were known not to let a pesky detail get in the way of a good tale. Too good to check, I say.
boatboy_srq
@gex: Pity that in Davis’ case “suffering” and “persecution” apparently don’t extend to spending the night in an all-women’s correctional institution.
Gimlet
More NYTs and “journalism”
New York Times Washington bureau chief Carolyn Ryan will step down and be replaced by current Washington Editor Elisabeth Bumiller, the Times said on Tuesday.
Wiki
Bumiller said, on the press conference in 2003 on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq:
I think we were very deferential because … it’s live, it’s very intense, it’s frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you’re standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country’s about to go to war. There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time.[2]
In 2003, in an article headlined “Keepers of Bush Image Lift Stagecraft to New Heights,” she wrote of the president’s famous “Mission Accomplished” speech, “George W. Bush’s Top Gun landing on the deck of the carrier Abraham Lincoln will be remembered as one of the most audacious moments of presidential theater in American history,” and described it as “the latest example of how the Bush administration [is] going far beyond the foundations in stagecraft set by the Reagan White House.”[3]
She has been married since 1983 to Steven R. Weisman, editorial director and public policy fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The institute chairman is Peter G. Peterson, former chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, former United States Secretary of Commerce, and one of the founders of the Blackstone Group.
Prominent members of the institute’s board of directors include:
Lawrence Summers, former United States Secretary of the Treasury;
boatboy_srq
@bemused:
There’s a very small part of me that’s hoping that one of the other clerks will find a way to create a situation specifically so Davis will break the law again for that exact reason.
Origuy
@Tom Levenson: Any relation to Simon? I enjoyed his three-part program on Byzantium for the BBC.
Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog
If the PTB at the Times felt that Brooks was not what they wanted, he wouldn’t be there. The only reasonable conclusion is that they have it this way because they want it this way.
That’s how.
bemused
@boatboy_srq:
Ha, I like the way you think.
Duke of Clay
I also believe he was dead wrong about how Labour ran in the last election. My perception was that they ran as Tory-lite, and, as Harry Truman would have predicted, given the choice of voting for real Tories or imitation Tories, people chose the real thing. Corbyn seems to represent the Labour wing of the Labour party, advocating such radical ideas as fully funding NHS and de-privatizing the railroads and Royal Mail.
And, as others have pointed out, Corbyn has been in Parliament for 32 years.
trollhattan
@srv:
Well, then, that settles that.
Let us savor.
By all means, we need more of this kind of hands-off management!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I actually don’t think it’s since forever. I think there used to be a sizable contingent of Roosevelt-Kennedy Democrats among the Villagers– Mark Shields, Sam Donaldson, Jack Germond, Mary McGrory– and “city columnists” like Royko, who weren’t exactly Villagers but were known and had syndicated columns, who believed in unions and a social safety net, more than a few of whom thought Reagan was an amiable dunce and Newt Gingrich was a nasty punk. They’ve been supplanted over the last twenty-odd years by Russert-Fournier-Joe Klein types who think of themselves as liberal because they have gay friends (Klein congratulated himself for weeks because he attended Andrew Sullivan’s wedding) and don’t want to talk about abortion, but “really, we’ve got to get serious about spending and entitlements (of course it’s not about my tax bill, old top, I’m willing to pay my fair share, but really…)”, and “we all have money in the stock market these days”. They tend to favor being “tough” on foreign policy (we’ve got to do something…. Luke wanted to join up, but he had just started that sports radio program with Jimmy Matalin), and Iraq was really all too bad but it was just something that happened and we can’t point the finger of blame. Age has culled most of the old school, and even before they died, they had been made very uncomfortable by abortion and gay rights (Shields) taxes (IIRC Shields cited Royko, after he died, as the type of old man who went to college on the GI Bill, paid for his house with a VA loan, and then spent his federally subsidized retirement bitching about taxes), Bill Clinton’s penis (George Will once defended Sam Donaldson to a CSPAN caller, saying he knew no one who felt more strongly that Clinton should have been convicted and removed from office), or they just died out, even Germond (I have a certain affinity for grumpy old fat guys like the one I see in the mirror) was David Broder’s best friend and had the typical Villager’s unreasoning hatred of Al Gore.
Hell, I’m so old I remember when the Times had an honest to god liberal on its op-ed page, Anthony Lewis.
Tom Levenson
@Origuy: Yup. Cousin. Good guy. His brother Hugh is another fine writer/popular historian.
catclub
Pierce has not gotten around to the Brooks piece, but he thinks this is a big deal:
Washington State Court says charter schools do not deserve public funding.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a37722/washington-court-strikes-down-public-funding-for-charter-schools/
catclub
@trollhattan:
A lot more people should be asking the GOP if they would like Obama’s deal better if he was trading arms to Iran,
like Reagan did.
walt
I feel like the odd person who actually enjoys reading Brooks. Not that I agree with him, but that I sense his struggle trying to keep the whole right-wing delirium above water. It’s obviously not easy and he gives it his best effort short of simply renouncing the whole enterprise as so corrupt and unwieldy that there is no possible rescue. His fellow high-minded bloviator at AEI, Arthur Brooks, will pen op-ed pieces for the Times occasionally, and he’s performing a similar task, making conservatism somehow less nasty and more “thoughtful”. Call it seduction through tweediness. All that said, Brooks never reads the ample comments all his columns generate, which is a pity. They’re both funny and cruel and a pure pleasure to read.
srv
@trollhattan: Reagan got hostages, Obama got a deserter.
Jeffro
@Belafon: Oh heck yes. I’d love to hear Brooks’ attempt at explaining how that paragraph doesn’t describe Obama.
@Peale: Yes…that, and that Democrats always be polite so that GOP screamers can be properly heard and understood.
trollhattan
@srv:
No, he didn’t. I know it’s attractive to rewrite history, but you do it poorly so knock it off.
groucho48
@catclub:
Great ruling! My understanding, though, is that one of the big reasons it went that way was that the state of Washington’s constitution explicitly discusses school funding, so, the decision might not apply to other states.
Calouste
@Duke of Clay: And as the Scots showed, when faced with the choice between fake socialists in Labour and real socialists in the SNP, people go for the real thing as well.
MomSense
@beltane:
I think of him as a sort of contortionist who has to twist into increasingly complicated and difficult (to read!) positions in order to justify and explain his continued Repubublican and rational self image. As the Republican Party becomes more irrational his positions get more twisted.
Emma
@srv: And he got bin Laden, which your (formerly) best boys couldn’t do.
geg6
@the Conster:
Meanwhile, actual sports reporters with years of experience in covering the NFL and all the named parties and who I happen to know quite well, say the ESPN report is not at all far off from what they have been able to discover. Goodell is a disaster. The Pats should have been banned for Spygate and the evidence made public. Then we wouldn’t have to hear the incessant whining of the Pats fans for the past eight months.
Monala
@catclub: The problem with this decision is this:
(emphasis mine)
The timing sucks. What happens to all the kids who’ve already enrolled in these schools? How easy or difficult will it be for their parents to make other arrangements, and perhaps lay out more money for a different set of school supplies and clothing if the schools their kids have to transfer to have a different supply list and dress code?
SiubhanDuinne
@Tom Levenson:
What a wonderful story!
slag
@catclub:
I laughed out loud.
If Jeff Bezos actually believed in truth in advertising, he would officially change his name to “the inexcusable Jeff Bezos”.
Tehanu
@Brachiator:
I knew there was a reason I always thought Safire was a tool.
@srv:
You mean like the 138 Reagan appointees who were prosecuted for corruption and embezzlement?
JimGod
@Cacti: And what might those be, perchance?
brantl
Here’s a time-waster for you: try to remember a time when David Brook’s arguments weren’t based on a false premise. I suspect that the last time that was true, he was crying because his diaper was loaded with shit.
Chan Kobun
David Brooks, the Saxton Hale of Imaginary Hippie Punching.