John has already posted about Bret Stephens, and Atrios has been all over it today, but I wanted to add a couple thoughts on this relatively unimportant topic.
First, one of the things Fox News and the New York Times have in common is that neither respects their audience. Fox is not up front about it – they tell their lies to the rubes without being obvious that the joke’s on any Fox viewer who believes their bullshit. The Times is far more transparent about the contempt in which they hold anyone foolish enough to subscribe. Stephens is a prime example – his consistent anti-intellectual war on supposed campus political correctness, and his overall “I am Bret Stephens of the New York Times, bow before me” attitude, makes him the kind of asshole that the Times thinks its readers deserve. There are plenty of (well, maybe a few) conservatives who would have more than one or two hobby horses and perhaps have less of a jerk attitude. The Times could have hired any one of these. Instead they chose someone who has, and will continue, to get into pissing matches and throw around their Times credentials for the lamest reasons possible. (I’ll leave the question of why a liberal newspaper needs to have conservative columnists in a world where nobody lacks for choice in finding opinions for another post.)
Second, someone at the U of Chicago or the LSE (the two schools he attended) must have given him an intellectual whupping that he can’t forget. Clearly, Brett has a thin skin that causes him to have many sads. I’m guessing more than a few of the moments that he keeps secreted away in his hand-embroidered, tear-stained sad holder occurred during his undergraduate or graduate career. I think most of us have seen a big-mouthed, full-of-himself, entitled male get his comeuppance when he trotted out an ill-constructed argument for a position that a teacher didn’t agree with. It would be easy to blame that teacher’s liberalism for their lack of acceptance, but in most cases it’s probably the fact that the student did a poor job defending their argument that’s more important than the political persuasion of the faculty member. Stephens probably got his hide chapped a few times in class, can’t forgive it, and has continued his noble crusade against what he perceives as political correctness to this day.
My most memorable example of an entitled male getting his comeuppance was at the U of Chicago, back in the 80’s during a campus debate over divestment from South Africa between the leader of the divestment movement, who struck me as a poseur of the first order, and President Hanna Grey. He came ill prepared, with facile little arguments that probably went over well in late night sessions around a bong but were pretty weak in the harsh sober light of day. She handed him his ass, in a cool, calm and collected manner. Of course, he was right, but he couldn’t make his case. Bret is wrong, and can’t make his case. In the realms of politics and philosophy (Bret’s college majors) it’s the job of a college faculty to teach students to make their case well. Bret probably didn’t get that job done at either of his alma maters, he’s sad, and now we have to watch him cry in public. It would be a tiny tragedy if he weren’t so well compensated.
A Ghost To Most
Bedbug Stephens is going to stick. He shoulda kept quiet.
FTFBBRNYT.
Baud
Excellent post. The second paragraph is speculative as to the source of the Bedbug’s condition, but it is very plausible.
Adam L Silverman
Because they’re not actually a liberal newspaper. It is are an inherited family concern that has existed for well over 160 years and is so inherently conservative it is referred to as The Old Grey Lady. It was reactionary to fascist curious during the run up to World War II in its coverage of Hitler. It hasn’t really changed.
rikyrah
Stephens is another mediocre White Male who failed UP.
And, on top of not thanking his lucky stars, has the nerve to be a huge snowflake.
What a whiny azz titty baby.
He wasn’t even cursed out.
Bedbug.
Muthaphucka is whining about being compared to a bedbug.
Lips pursed.
Cheryl Rofer
It’s kind of nice that this is all we have to worry about today. Restful.
Unfortunately, it’s people like Stephens who want to get us into wars and MOAR NUKES and all those things I’m glad we’re hearing less about today. And he managed to get his sad face on national television today. I would have rather seen the guy who wrote the tweet.
Major Major Major Major
Speaking of the media
laura
The inadvertent self-pwn and impending ratio is shadenfreudalicious! The sheer “Hey everybody, STOP LOOKING AT ME” while presuming himself the subject, taking umbrage at an imagined slight, offering a family style beer summit to accept an apology is unmitigated gall. To cc the provost to tattle-tale this fantasy elevates it from the typical WATB to performance art.
If conservative voices weren’t so stifled in the halls of academe, we’d surely hear more thoughts from Brett and his ilk.
What a tool. What an entitled, self-important, overpaid young male conservative with a sinecure in the largest American newspaper to spout his ill considered opinions that reinforce his shite-bag opinions about his narrow interests.
RedDirtGirl
@rikyrah: Who’s the snowflake now, muthaphucka!
Baud
@laura:
So you’re saying he’s presidential.
Baud
@RedDirtGirl:
I’ve been called worse by my mama.
MJS
I’ve had the good fortune to never hear Bret Stephens speak, but after reading that email he sent, I have to believe his voice is has a very Thurston Howell III quality to it.
cmorenc
With conservative AGW skeptics like Bret Stephens, the key underlying factor is that they instinctively believe that accepting its reality and the need to take corrective measures will require validation of a degree of government economic and social intervention that is anathema to them. At least with the noxious billionaire Koch brothers, the naked selfish avarice in their AGW denial support is somewhat understandable from a practical standpoint, evil though it is. With Stephens, it’s just the elaborate conservative ideological sand castle that they’ve invested so much work in constructing that they’re trying to defend against the tide of reality and those who point out the folly.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
The Vichy Times is not a liberal paper.
Betty Cracker
I’m still marveling that Trump tweeted a denial about a bedbug infestation at his shithole hotel in Miami on the same day Stephens had his bedbug meltdown. I mean, what are the chances?
Yarrow
I mentioned last night that on Sunday morning I had the misfortune of seeing him on the TV for about 20 seconds when I turned it on. He was on the Chuck Todd Power Hour. TV was muted and I didn’t recognize him but it was clear he was an entitled d-bag. Then they put up his name and just thought, “Oh…of course…”
JPL
@Betty Cracker: It’s always about the orange asshole, isn’t it.
wah, wah, wah, I was accused about bedbugs also.
SiubhanDuinne
The Guardian is reporting that Deutsche Bank has some of Trump’s tax returns. Breaking, so nothing in the way of details yet.
And for some reason it’s not linking.
Yarrow
Damn. Leslie Jones is leaving SNL.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: It’s all a conspiracy by Big Bedbug.
Roger Moore
I’m sure this is true. I’m also sure that students are most likely to do this kind of thing when they’re arguing based on their political ideology, and they’re most likely to do it when their professor disagrees with that ideology. So getting smacked down may not be a direct result of the professor’s ideology, but it’s likely to be an indirect result.
(((CassandraLeo)))
I feel as though the provost was attempting to be passive-aggressive in his response, but I’m not fully sure it came off. I’d have just gone with one of the classics:
A missed opportunity if ever I saw one.
(Change the date as needed – I’ve estimated what the timeline might have been.)
Ceterum censeo factionem Republicanam esse delendam.
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: To sell more bedbugs?
A Ghost To Most
If nothing else good happens this week/month/year, we’ll always have Bedbug Stephens.
RepubAnon
Bedbug Brett will probably write a column about the dreaded PC police soon. He’ll then be shocked by the resulting criticism.
dmsilev
I guess I have to correct myself, sort of, re: the GWU Provost ignoring the stupid email from the stupid person. Because the provost did respond basically by politely calling Stephens an ass and trolling him re: the “come to my house” thing. Guess when something goes sufficiently viral, it will attract the university administration’s attention.
dmsilev
@A Ghost To Most: I’m fond of the ‘Brettbug Stephens” variant myself.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: We’ve had flea markets for ages. Can’t blame the bedbugs for wanting some of that action.
jl
What is infuriating about the NYT is that they could find some good respectable conservative voices on economics, social policy, etc. if they wanted to. But, respectable conservative voices are not what the GOP goon squad, or the Trumpsters, want. They want hacks, shills and poseurs who will usually go along with the talking points of the day. Some, like Brooks, can throw a very warn veil over it, but most can’t.
So, the NYT has cycled through a number of hacks and con artists who are so bad that they have to be let go, or produce repeated embarrassments.
I can think of a couple of center-right economists who would be just as interesting and informative as Krugman, but the GOP would call them commies, and the Trumpsters would yell that they were being very unfair.
This problem with the NYT long predated Trump.
rikyrah
???
Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) Tweeted:
The twenty-something personal trainer that Jerry Falwell Jr set up with a $2+ million land deal is a different young man than the twenty-something pool boy he lent $1.8 million to for a youth hostel project, if you’re keeping score. t.co/HxQRronLqu twitter.com/studentactivism/status/1166439526933442560?s=17
kindness
The NY Times is not a liberal paper. They never have been. They have always been NY/NE Republican. Case in point: The Times spent the entire 2016 campaign acting as if every Hillary travesty was real (they weren’t) and treasonous (again, they weren’t) and spent the whole time blowing up Donald Trump as reasoned and good. Not one thin dime NY Times.
HyperSherpicalCow
To reference a comment I made a day ago, Bret Stephens’ skin is so thin that it can’t block alpha particles.
jl
@jl: ” hacks, shills and poseurs”
Why did I resort to euphemism? I meant ‘henchmen, flunkies and stooges’. I apologize.
HyperSphericalCow
[DELETED because I didn’t see that it had actually been posted.]
Jeffro
@JPL: It’s weird, isn’t it? How it’s all just false accusations and #FakeNews?
– bedbugs
– tax fraud
– payoffs to mistresses
– shrinking crowds
– money laundering
– conspiracy with a hostile foreign power
– golfing every 3rd-4th day
– emoluments
– responsibility for kids in cages
All of it, every time, every thing, no matter what: trumpov didn’t do it, didn’t steal it, didn’t screw it up, didn’t pay it off, didn’t scam someone, didn’t line his own pockets, no way uh uh.
Amazing. Every time. Who else has that kind of track record of perfection?
JPL
@Jeffro: The biggest lie of all is that he doesn’t have time to watch TV.
jl
@kindness: Good time to remind folks that when Krugman was hired by NYT, he was very centrist on fiscal policy, debt, globalization. The NYT thought they would be getting a high toned debt scold, based on Krugman’s warning about the big bad debt GW Bush’s income tax cut con was going to produce.
Krugman was right about pretty much all of GW Bush’s income tax cut con, except that the horrible bad things the increased debt Krugman thought would materialize did not happen, or at least, took a lot longer to materialize, and did very much different sorts of bad things (I think more related to hollowing out of US manufacturing) than the inflation and debt rollover crisis that he predicted.
The NYT naively thought they were getting a standard pundit who was unable or unwilling to notice that a very important prediction was totally wrong, and also unable or unwilling to try to figure out why. So, Krugman turned out to be an unpleasant surprise. Krugman did not pump out the same thing over and over that was friendly to big corporate interests, no matter how detached from reality (contrast to Brooks should go here…). Hoocuddnode? Maybe they have been looking for particularly reliable stooges since then on the conservative side ever since then, which is why the keep getting burned.
HyperSphericalCow
@rikyrah: I cannot neither confirm or deny that I have watched an adult video that involved a hot poolboy.
Mary G
Bret didn’t censure Twitler for calling poor Guatemalans an “infestation,” unless I missed it, not having a FTFNYT subscription anymore. So he has no right to bitch about an obvious joke about bedbugs. I do wonder if this is all fake outrage for attention and clicks. Even bad publicity is better than being ignored.
Yarrow
@dmsilev: Bretbug, Bedbug Stephens, it’s all good. And it’ll be with him forever.
Kay
It’s interesting, if anyone wants to watch. They’ll probably settle so this is the only chance to actually see these people in action, since we don’t have trials that involve plutocrats anymore, or something.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: BWHAHAHA!
Personal trainer fuckboy and pool boy fuckboy – got it.
mrmoshpotato
The sadliest sads.
Roger Moore
@jl:
They’re doing it for a reason. Hacks, shills, and poseurs who go along with the daily talking points are a far more accurate representation of the conservative zeitgeist than thoughtful, respectable voices.
StringOnAStick
This Brettbug thing reminds me of one of my favorite undergrad experiences, when the scrawny entitled white male libertoonian was peppering the excellent economics professor with libertoonian arguments from the back of the lecture hall. The professor answered a few even though it was deraiiling his lesson plan, then marched back and grabbed the pamphlet said scrawny guy was taking all his questions from. He took it to the front of the hall and spent the rest of class destroying the arguments in the pamphlet one by one white scrawny guy grew redder and smaller. I don’t remember if he ever returned to class.
piratedan
well…. if The New York Times is the “standard of record”, perhaps its time we all modernized to a new standard…
Part of me is livid that MSNBC had Bretbug on to “defend” himself and allowed him to peddle that bullshit that he wasn’t being petty or combative or attempting to cost the guy his job when its obvious that by copying the instructor’s boss on the e-mail that was sent was designed to do exactly that. I would have seen zero cost in simply telling him to his face that not only is he apparently the human equivalent of a bedbug, he’s also a lying POS and he could take himself off the set in a polite and orderly fashion.
PST
This is off the topic, but at least it involves another pathetic man. Breaking in WaPo:
What could Barr possibly do to appear more corrupt and sycophantic?
waspuppet
Actually it’d be a total laugh riot if he weren’t so well compensated. It’s a full-on tragedy given his position and salary. And how many actual journalists are unemployed.
Never forget (an abridged version of an exchange that really needs to be read in full):
delk
Been limping around the house the last couple of days with this stuck in my head:
Jay
@(((CassandraLeo))):
Dear Mr. Stevens,
This is an Arbys.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
I keep telling people not to tempt the Fates.
TenguPhule
Fuck me blind.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@jl:
Aren’t these a lot like unicorns in that they don’t exist? What conservative fits that description anymore?
jl
@TenguPhule: ” Trump pushes for new logging in Alaskan rainforest ”
Does it involve nuking the forest?
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
In this timeline? Near certainty.
TenguPhule
@jl:
At the very least, setting it on fire. Because he has to one up Brazil.
TenguPhule
@TenguPhule:
Because it wasn’t enough to sign off on destroying the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. He has to ruin the rest of Alaska too.
TenguPhule
There’s a pro-gay rights GOP group?
JPL
@Kay: Can’t imagine why they want to settle? Thank you for the link.
jl
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: There are a few who have a history of being Republican (not sure what they are now), or have theories that have headed them towards more center-right thinking on policy.
James Heckman comes to mind.; But he would write things like “You know, more spending on early childhood and pre-school education really pays off, we need to do a lot more of that, especially for poor communities” Or “Knock off the racial stereotypes, the Bell Curve is garbage”
No amount of center-rightness on macroeconomics would ever make up for that. So.. I dunno, by current standards, that guy is Stalinist now, I guess, and wouldn’t count as a conservative.
laura
@Baud: positively trumpian, but more Eric…..
Yarrow
Even Russia is looking at taking climate change seriously.
debbie
@TenguPhule:
Log Cabin Republicans. They clearly have lost their mind to have endorsed Trump.
patrick II
@PST:
Declare the Mueller report showed no collusion?
noncarborundum
@MJS: Someone last night said his email to Karpf was best read in a Foghorn Leghorn voice, and I can definitely see that.
Jay
@Betty Cracker:
@JPL:
In the ratio-ing of Bedbug Brett, somebody tied their response to Orangemadius’s pimping out Doral to Doral settling out of court with a customer over a bedbug infestation.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Have you seen clearcutting?
jl
@TenguPhule: Wiki says the most significant logging restrictions were imposed in 1990 and 2003, both times under the tyrannical rule of the Stalinist elder and younger Bush’s.
Doesn’t mention anything happening in 2001. What was that?
jl
@jl:
Tongass National Forest
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongass_National_Forest
TenguPhule
@jl:
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I’m half expecting Marvel to announce The Bedbug as their newest superhero.
TenguPhule
@jl: And to give you an idea of how stupid and petty it is.
Wheeee!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Saw a headline about the Amazon rainforest, still on fire: “Brazil will reject $20 million of Amazon fire aid from G7”
This is crazy pants bullshit. He’s Trump with a real tan. I’m sorry, but the Amazon belongs to all of humanity and saving it has nothing at all to do with “national sovereignty”. The rest of the world would be entirely justified in removing Bolsonaro from power. Luckily for him, the Amazon fires are apparently dying down (which were likely caused by farmers in the first place clear cutting, so not out of the woods yet)
TenguPhule
Calvin Klein does not approve.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
They already have the Tick.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
If they continue clear cutting, we’ll be out of the woods.
jl
@TenguPhule: Thanks very much. Wiki mentions that the 2003 restrictions were a rider on an appropriations bill. So GW probably had to hold his nose to sign it. More evidence that not a lot of difference between new post-Gingrich ‘movement conservative’ GOP and Trumpsters on policy, Trumpsters just yell out what is supposed to be dog whistled, or whispered in the quiet back rooms.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
What, we don’t recognize other countries national borders now?
That should be interesting.
jl
@TenguPhule: ‘ One former Trump staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation, said forest policy has become “an obsession of his.” ‘
Trump insists on having a test bed for his forest floor raking policy? Easier to rake if you get rid of the trees (actually, that is not true, but Trump has a record of always being very wrong).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: The lack of trees make for better golf courses.
Redshift
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Agreed. As Krugman often writes, there is a “hack gap” with conservative economics populated almost entirely with hacks. There are some who have actual academic expertise, but they’re willing to spout dogma in public, so they don’t qualify either.
It’s much the same in every field. The movement used to have some true believers who wanted to prove their case; now it is entirely populated by people who only want to win, and don’t care whether their “win” can survive contact with reality.
Ksmiami
@Baud: Bedbug will play a corrupted journalist villain and Antman will win that fight
Jay
@TenguPhule:
Pitching in to help control forest fires, is a common practice.
Bolsonaro’s actual policy is to burn down the Amazon for soybeans, cattle and mining, that way he can get rid of those pesky Indiginous and Negrito folks.
Genocide and ecocide disguised as Economic Policy.
Problem is, he can’t say the quiet parts out loud, in public.
If the Amazon is burned as Bolsonaro would like, it will dump as much CO2 into the amosphere as mankind has generated since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and permanently remove one of the largest carbon sinks on earth.
Game over for everybody.
BTW, Africa is also burning, Siberia, Alaska, etc.
Jay
Sally
The saying “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.” applies. Conservatives are afraid liberals will laugh at them. Liberals are afraid conservatives will kill them. Because they do.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
There will always be wealthy minorities who care about tax breaks because they think their wealth means they don’t have to worry about discrimination.
Omnes Omnibus
@MJS:
Like FDR, Gore Vidal, and George Plimpton?
Jay
Redshift
@TenguPhule:
More or less “interesting” than having the leader of a country in a position to destroy civilization say he intends to do it, and responding with “oh, well, we have no right to interfere; I guess we have to give up.”
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Heh. True. I kind of fell into that one
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Jay: @Redshift:
This. There’s too much at stake just to leave it in Latin American Trump’s hands.
TenguPhule
@Redshift:
Are we prepared to fight Brazil to make them accept that help?
Jay
Jay
@TenguPhule:
Why is the default American position on any issue “Moar Warz!!!!!!”?
Jay
Jay
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Yes, definitely.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
It’s just The Grey Lady.
VeniceRiley
Scratch a conservative, find a snowflake.
TenguPhule
@Jay:
Breaching other countries borders uninvited is one of the recognized declarations of war internationally. If you’ve been paying attention, Brazil is already deploying their own military to “fight the fires”.
Jay
@TenguPhule:
If you are paying attention, Brazil is not deploying their military to fight the Amazon Forest Fires, they are deploying their Military to supress reporting and Ingidinous and Negrito unrest and protests.
Brazil has a large number of trade, security and other Agreements with the “West” and neighboring States. Effective non-military pressure could be applied.
We won’t do that though, so the Amazon will burn into the wet season, then burn again next year, and the year after, and the year after that, until it’s all gone.
J R in WV
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Back in 1922 the N Y Times had a wonderful, supportive, warm article about a dear Mr. Hitler, who was just becoming a figure in German politics.
What ever became of Mr. Hitler?
Then in about 1938, the N Y Times had a positive artistic review of Mr. Hitler’s Alpine hideaway, which was wonderfully designed and built to aid Mr. Hitler and his cabinet officials in formulating their goals for Germany, and devising a path forward to achieve those humanistic goals.
What ever became of Germany under Mr Hitler’s gentle rule?
I suppose the N Y Times might have one more story with the outcome of Mr Hitler’s Germanic rule? Ya think?
chopper
jesus christ, stephens. all you had to do was walk away. a dumb joke on the hinterlands of twitter. nobody fucking read it. nobody would have known or given a shit, ever. but nooooooo, you had to show the whole world that you are a clown.
Gex
@chopper: If he was the kind of guy who could leave it, he’d be the kind of guy who would have never found the obscure tweet in the first place. Dude gets Google alerts on his name just so he CAN step in it this badly.
sherparick
@Adam L Silverman: Quite true. The target audience is the New York Upper and and Upper Middleclass (which would be pretty upper class anywhere else in the country). Culturally liberal and economically conservative (they love those Republican tax cuts – only why are they so crazy about abortion and gay people???), the Conservative writers like Stephens, Brooks, and Douhat are there to create an illusion of Republican/conservative moderation and rationality and let them believe “Both Sides” are to blame before moving on the the Real Estate, Life Style, Travel, Food, and Arts part of the paper. Hence the anxiety about “political correctness” and the attention paid to it by these columnists about elite universities where these people graduated from and where their kids go to or will be going to school. I still subscribe because of Krugman, Goldberg, and Bouile as well as the fine articles that appear in general news and science and health. But the NYT “Politics” coverage has been a nightmare for 30 years and the joke that his is a “liberal” paper has now become a fucking trope. For 40 years, rightwingers have been singing this tune. It began when NYT correspondents reported, sometimes in spite of their editors, on what an awful disaster Vietnam was and lies our Government and right-wingers continued to feed about it to this day. E.g. it is simply a bad faith argument that no one should ever had taken seriously, but unfortunately the weak kneed and conservative owners of the NYT swallowed hook, line, and sinker as as a core belief and hence the need for “balance,” starting with the despicable William Safire, Nixon’s speech writer, who used his column for bad faith attacks on Democrats for his entirety at the NY Times. Stephens is just another one in a long line of “balance” columnists for whom standards and accuracy and good faith do not apply.