Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

We will not go back.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Second rate reporter says what?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

I really should read my own blog.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

You are here: Home / He’s Not a Scientist, But His Wife Did Stay in a Feriengasthof Ausdrucken

He’s Not a Scientist, But His Wife Did Stay in a Feriengasthof Ausdrucken

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The NY Times, despite having an op-ed page that already hosts with Brooks, Dowd, Douthat, and Friedman and is a toxic waste dump of Oakeshittian wingnuttia and muddling centrism worthy of Superfund status, has decided to enrage those readers who still remain by hiring away the preternaturally smug Bret Stephens from the WSJ. Stephens has decided it is in his interest to do an “I’m not a science denier or moron, I’m just a fucking asshole” tour to deflect some of the criticism lobbed at him, and sat down for an interview with Vox. Lots of fabulous stuff (including downplaying campus rape by equating it the rape crisis in the Congo), but this is my fucking favorite:

My wife is German, so I know something about German energy policy.

With logic like that, I can see why the Times needed to hire him.

Here are some more excerpts:

“Look, at the risk of being incredibly politically incorrect, but I guess that’s my job — I think that all lives matter,” Stephens said. “Not least black lives.”

***

But if sexual assault rates in, let’s say, east Congo were about 20 percent, most people wouldn’t travel to those places. Because that is in fact — or, that would be, in fact, the risk of being violently sexually assaulted.

I am not for one second denying the reality of campus rape, or sexual assault, or behavior of the sort you saw from that swimmer at Stanford — that’s inexcusable and should be punished.

I’m taking issue with the claim that there is an epidemic based on statistics that, when looked at carefully, seem to have a very slim basis in reality. So what you’re transforming is horrendous, deplorable incidents into an epidemic — and that’s not altogether supported by reliable data.

***

Another example I took issue with is the idea that one in seven Americans are hungry. That’s not true. It’s not. It’s a problem because it’s not true.

Does this mean there aren’t hungry Americans? No. Does this mean we shouldn’t care about hunger in America? No. But when you have a campaign you see on subway billboards and elsewhere saying one in seven Americans is hungry, that’s false.

Here’s the problem with people like Bret Stephens (and I am not defending the stats he is attacking because, get this- I HAVEN’T FUCKING RESEARCHED THEM)- first, he knows full well what he is doing. He’s not plucking these statistics for disdain out of thin air. He attacks these specific statistics to allow breathing room for the deniers of problems that conservatives don’t like, don’t want to deal with, or would lose money if they had to address them.

Second, if you have a problem with statistics, the way you handle it is by demonstrating how the statistics are wrong. You show the flaws in the methodology, you run your own numbers and present them for peer review. What you don’t do is say “those numbers are bullshit because they give me a sad” or “there is not a crisis with sexual assault because the numbers seem too high” or “I see lots of fat people so how can all these people be hungry.”

What Stevens will now be doing, in the allegedly liberal NY Times, is going forward and farting through a megaphone into the public square, drowning out those people who have run the numbers and are trying to make evidence based cases that, unfortunately, are not as succinct as holding up a snowball in the well of the Senate or a bumpersticker that says “Stop Global Warming: Kill Yourself.”

Reader Interactions

113Comments

  3. 3.

    Patricia Kayden

    @schrodingers_cat: Yep. And they’re still normalizing him. What is the sense of hiring someone like Stephens in the first place when all he does is lie? Shouldn’t the NYT be concerned with promoting the truth to its millions of readers instead of bringing on a Rightwing bomb thrower? They may as well have given a column to Mike Flynn or Sean Spicer. Or better yet, Kelly Con Artist Conway.

  4. 4.

    MelissaM

    Well, my quick google tells me he is correct on the hunger thing, it’s not 1 in 7 Americans. It’s 13.5%, so it’s more like one in 6.8 Americans. Yeah, nevermind. That sarcasm isn’t working for me on this one, either.

    20% of kids are hungry. 1 in 5. These are the stats that make me say, I hate this country, that our government could allow this kind of poverty and hunger. But hey, the wealthy might get another tax cut, so trickle down!!

  5. 5.

    cokane

    i love posts like these Cole. I wish you political blogged more. Sometimes I think twitter has stolen you from this space!

  6. 6.

    lollipopguild

    New York Times: We need a white male writer(we do not have enough of them) who is as stoopid as we can find, where do we look? Try the wall street journal!

  8. 8.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    John, it’s high time that you change the following BJ Lexicon entry “even the liberal New Republic” to “even the liberal New York Times” — not the least because now when TNR errs it’s generally from an identifiably left position. (Or at least make it its own entry as “Fuck the Fucking New York Times,” which I believe is a Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap coinage.

  9. 9.

    George Spiggott

    Since his wife is German, I’m sure he also knows something about German scheiße philia.

  12. 12.

    TenguPhule

    What Village said.

    Guilty until proven innocent is going to have to be the norm soon for “conservatives”.

    We won’t survive as a species otherwise.

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    Here’s the “tell” on Stephens. He is one of those pundits who tries to invoke science and statistical rigor without really knowing what he is talking about, or being able to actually apply science or use statistics correctly.

    Yeah, he won a Pulitzer. But so did Maureen Dowd.

  21. 21.

    SatanicPanic

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Shouldn’t the NYT be concerned with promoting the truth to its millions of readers instead of bringing on a Rightwing bomb thrower?

    They should be. But that ship has sailed.

  22. 22.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    The worst kind of garbage is the kind filled with old lobster bait. That’s how garbagey the New York Times is now.

  23. 23.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    I really love the “Shit, if we can’t even tell what it’ll be like outside tomorrow, how can we tell what it’ll be like over the next 100 years?” shit. That’s just so fucking cute. It’s like saying, “Well, if you can’t guess how many times this coin is going to land on its head in three tosses, how can you make any kind of good guess over 70,000 tosses?” These people don’t know shit, and I’m sick of people who don’t know shit getting perches like this to spread their horseshit everywhere, just like they were smart people who know what the fuck they’re talking about. Fuck. Now I’m pissed.

  24. 24.

    Mike in NC

    Both the NY Times and Washington Post have a long history of hiring from the Wall Street Jerkoff.

  25. 25.

    pacem appellant

    Still not subscribing. I’m not over Judith Miller, let alone the ensuing decade of journalistic malfeasance. I *might* get a Washington Post subscription just for Fahrenthold, but if I’ve got coin, I give it to the blogs.

  29. 29.

    El Caganer

    @MelissaM: Yeah, but you probably got that figure from some fake news site, like, say, the USDA’s Economic Research Service – which would have taken this horse’s ass of a ” journalist” all of about 10 seconds to Google.

  39. 39.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud: But they apparently considered it unlikely, since until the actual briefing it was treated as a security level clearance event. At least, according to this story.

  42. 42.

    sam

    And on the sexual assault claims, he’s not even denying the NUMBERS. he’s denying that sexual assault is sexual assault.

    Oh – unwanted touching? forcible kissing? that’s not real assault. Nevermind what the law says – it only counts if someone if it meets this asshole’s preferred fantasy of violent rape.

  44. 44.

    SatanicPanic

    @Baud: I’d love to hear what their issue is with her ability to get bills passed, i.e., her actual job, not the job they imagine she is supposed to do.

  49. 49.

    Amaranthine RBG

    Here’s the problem with people like Bret Stephens (and I am not defending the stats he is attacking because, get this- I HAVEN’T FUCKING RESEARCHED THEM)

    Okay so you don’t like Bret Stephens. I get that.

    But attacking someone’s statements – without bothering to discern whether they’re true or not – because you dislike the speaker is just… tiresome.

  54. 54.

    tobie

    @Major Major Major Major: Gawd this is annoying. I love the double standard. Even a Dem like Pelosi who has championed liberal causes with considerable legislative success is compromised because she received campaign contributions from corporations. St. Bernard of the North voted for the 1994 crime bill, advocated dumping toxic waste in minority neighborhoods, voted for the omnibus budget bill that deregulated the banks, voted against the auto bailout, and has done his darnedest to defeat every sensible gun regulation ever introduced, and his die-hards say, whatever, he’s still pure. Far be it from this challenger Jaffe to see that in dividing the party he’s doing the work of the GOP and Putin, to boot.

  56. 56.

    TenguPhule

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    But attacking someone’s statements – without bothering to discern whether they’re true or not – because you dislike the speaker is just… tiresome.

    His wife is German, so he knows about German energy policy.

    Need a Clue by Four?

  57. 57.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I can’t keep up with the countless rings in this circus — was the funhouse show for war with North Korea or Trump’s catastrophic budget proposal?

  60. 60.

    patroclus

    This is classic Oakeshott. In the Vox interview, Stephens basically admits that climate change is real, that sexual assaults do happen on campus, that not all Arabs are pathologically anti-Semitic, that African-Americans are often killed by police officers etc…, but none of that is the real problem. Rather, the real problem is that people who argue for these problems to be addressed use stats or arguments that Stephens doubts, has uncertainties about or just doesn’t like and therefore, the problems should not be addressed at all. Or, to give him the benefit of the doubt, that resources currently being directed at these problems should be drastically reduced. The problem is not the problem – instead, the problem is the way people talk about the problem. And, as John said, Stephens doesn’t prove his point with any real statistical analysis – he merely tries to shift the burden of proof with idiotic anecdotes about a “guy he knows” or his wife’s nationality. So, he’s not as bad as a Senator Inhofe, but his policy objectives are precisely the same – to do nothing.

  62. 62.

    Chyron HR

    @Baud:

    I’m shocked that the true progressive answer to “There are eleventy billion districts where the Democrats don’t run candidates” is “Recruit a primary challenger for every Democrat in Congress”.

  63. 63.

    SatanicPanic

    @ruemara: I get that her tone is a bit aristocratic so “Real Americans” hate her, but why does the left have to go along with that? I guess it’s the being a woman. Lame.

  66. 66.

    TenguPhule

    @debbie:

    was the funhouse show for war with North Korea or Trump’s catastrophic budget proposal?

    It was the search for what the hell is Trump’s proposal for dealing with North Korea.

    Apparently he still doesn’t know.

  68. 68.

    waspuppet

    But if they didn’t hire Bret Stephens, how would we know what conservatives are thinking? We just never get to hear what they believe or what’s important to them. I mean, maybe if they had control of some of the levers of power in this country, that’d be one thing …

  69. 69.

    SatanicPanic

    @Baud: Some should be. If progressives are putting her on the list, they need to get their heads checked.

  71. 71.

    ingressus sum

    So, my suspicion that the NYT’s deputy publisher was lying while WIRED was complicit in perpetuating the lies about a ‘transformation’ at the home office is valid. Just more gummed reinforcements (paper assholes) for the future at the Times!

  73. 73.

    Frank Wilhoit

    Ausdrucken (v.) : to express, as in to express oneself. Lit. “to press out”, thus exactly cognate with the common Latin ancestor.

    “Express” (adj.) as in “Holiday Inn Express” (TM), meaning ~~ optimized for speed, is a loanword in German, simply “Express”. This goes back to the earliest English [mis]use of the word in connection with postal and transport services. When the Germans think the English have abused a word, they turn up their collective nose by simply adopting it as it stands. Kind of like the French biftek, which is never said without a snicker.

  74. 74.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @TenguPhule: Well. In that case I must confess that despite having owned the aforementioned capuchin, two cockatoos (now-deceased), a Rottweiler, two shih tzu twins (after the Rottweiler died), and a number of fish, I’ve never had a virtual pet. Largely because of my nonexistent attention span.

  77. 77.

    cmorenc

    @cokane:

    i love posts like these Cole. I wish you political blogged more. Sometimes I think twitter has stolen you from this space!

    Also, too Cole has a girlfriend and has to make frequent shopping trips to make his house ever-more happy and inviting for her and her two kids so they’ll stick around. Good for him! When the woman in your life is happy, so can be you. When she’s not, so can you not be too.

  79. 79.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Baud: I’d honestly prefer that all incumbent Dems respectfully engage in a substantive debate of ideas and policies with their challengers. In this case, I think the results would be revealing…

  80. 80.

    geg6

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    WTF are you talking about. Fucker says he is an expert on German energy policy because his wife’s German, engages in sexual assault denialism and racial dog whistles and we’re supposed to take anything he says seriously? You can, thanks. He’s already proven to me that he’s at Trump levels of stupid. He is not to be taken seriously regardless of how much the Vichy Times fluffs him.

  82. 82.

    Cacti

    @SatanicPanic:

    I get that her tone is a bit aristocratic so “Real Americans” hate her, but why does the left have to go along with that? I guess it’s the being a woman. Lame.

    She was another uppity wimmin who refused to worship at the People’s Temple of Wilmer.

    She must be punished.

  84. 84.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Modern movement conservatism is the most intellectually fucking lazy, slothful exercise imaginable. The basic premise is “why bother fixing things that are busted? Things will resolve themselves one way or another – roads and bridges and locks and dams will be repaired or maintained in some fashion by those who need them most, the chronically ill will remain uninsured and die and the sainted Market (peace be unto it) will select winners or losers and any pain to victims is collateral to all the freedom. Sprinkle some bleated prayers to that shithead deity for succor to victims and forgiveness for laziness and crimes, and everything is all good….”

  85. 85.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Honestly, that’s so far before my time I initially thought it was a joke the Simpsons writers made up (it was referenced in Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life). As for the concept of a pet rock, William Maher SUPERGENIUS:

    You can know that a rock makes a shitty pet, but if you buy a pet rock, you’re still an idiot. Ask your dentist – a shit-eating grin doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been eating shit.

  87. 87.

    SFAW

    @geg6:

    He’s already proven to me that he’s at Trump levels of stupid.

    Doubtful. Shitgibbon could not string too coherent sentences together. (And by “coherent,” I’m not talking about whether they make logical sense — I’m talking about being able to read them without responding “What??? WTF is he trying to say? He’s making Sarah Palin’s word salad look intelligent.”)

    And as far as the “German energy policy” thing: it reminded me of “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” Well, actually, with this moron, it’s more like “I’m not a doctor, but I once knew someone whose cousin’s ex-wife’s brother played one on TV.”

  95. 95.

    Villago Delenda Est

    People like Stephens who so willfully get it wrong, about just about everything, are ideal fodder for tumbrels.

  100. 100.

    hitless

    @Amaranthine RBG: Cole pointed out the obviously not randomly selected set of issues Stephens spoke about. He notes that Stephens is focussed on climate change, poor people, and what really qualifies as sexual assault as opposed to debunking the notion that tax cuts spur the economy or that illegal immigrants are primarily criminals and drug smugglers. Cole’s observation is, in fact, analytical and important in that the intrepid Mr. Stephens is perhaps not an impartial truth-seeker.

  101. 101.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @hitless:

    the intrepid Mr. Stephens is perhaps not an impartial truth-seeker.

    Indeed, this is one of the most obvious “No shit, Sherlock!” things I’ve seen today…and this is the day that the Donald “tax plan” (which is more like a shitty PowerPoint slide produced by a fourth-rate ad agency) came out.

  102. 102.

    Major Major Major Major

    @hitless: He’s basically a guy complaining that there are factual inaccuracies in the things his liberal friends post on Facebook. And, sure, sometimes there are! You might even say often! And people are allowed to have that as a pet peeve and maybe even complain about it.

    What’s not OK, as you’ve identified, is using a New York Times column to do so when there are other things to deal with.

  103. 103.

    danielx

    The NY Times, despite having an op-ed page that already hosts with Brooks, Dowd, Douthat, and Friedman and is a toxic waste dump of Oakeshittian wingnuttia and muddling centrism worthy of Superfund status, has decided to enrage those readers who still remain by hiring away the preternaturally smug Bret Stephens from the WSJ.

    Because balance. And reasons. As if they didn’t have enough passive aggressive conservative assholes already, and Stephens is clearly an asshole of biblical proportions.

    Fuck balance, and fuck Dean Baquet And Arthur Sulzberger and the balancing beams they rode in on too.

  105. 105.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @danielx: Punch and the entire crew, with the disgraceful performance the NYT staff put in during the 2016 election, are essentially accessories after the fact in every treasonous action committed by the Donald Crime Syndicate.

  106. 106.

    Roger Moore

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    ITYM accessories before the fact, which is what you call someone who knowingly helps a criminal prepare to commit a crime. An accessory after the fact is somebody who helps them to escape or cover up their crime after it’s already been committed. So working so hard to get trump elected would make the NYT an accessory before the fact; it’s their assistance in covering up his malfeasance that makes them accessories after the fact.

  107. 107.

    J R in WV

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    “Tiresome!” Really? You are calling someone who contributes to the world of humanity tiresome?? I am amazed at the hubris, arrogance and lack of integrity you display every time you post anything here.

    Go away, please, until you learn how to conduct a conversation with a group. Please. Idjit!

  108. 108.

    J R in WV

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I have thousands of “pet” rocks. I collect mineral specimens, mostly crystals. I love them and keep them carefully preserved. I don’t pet them!

  109. 109.

    NorthLeft12

    What is happening to the NY Times is just shameful. I can’t bring myself to read any of their articles anymore.

  110. 110.

    sophronia

    “Look, at the risk of being incredibly politically incorrect

    I’m sure that’s all he had to say in his job interview. Hired!

    It amazes me that the only people who have orthodoxy, according to the self-appointed geniuses in the media, are liberals. Conservative ideas are always treated as fresh and unexpected, even if it’s things like white supremacy, Naziism, etc. that have been around for generations.

  111. 111.

    Donna K

    Bret: It’s snowing out. Haw, haw, how’s that global warming workin’ out for you?
    You: Weather and climate are not the same.
    Bret: What’s your point?

  112. 112.

    low-tech cyclist

    My wife is German, so I know something about German energy policy.

    Sounds like Bret Stephens’ answer to “I can see Russia from my house!”

  113. 113.

    Vincent Pawlowski

    A few days earlier, Stephens told Vox, “my wife is German, so I know something about German energy policy.”
    Really?
    I am pleased to announce that I am a Chinese, Italian, and Irish energy policy expert.
    Do affairs count? What about my own Polish heritage, that should add to my credibility as a Polish energy expert.
    I once dated an Indian woman. If needed, I could have an affair with an African.
    A couple more marriages, and could be a world expert!
    Please send lucrative job offers to my Facebook page.

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