Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

The willow is too close to the house.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

Republicans in disarray!

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

This fight is for everything.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

This really is a full service blog.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Night Wind-Down Open Thread – David ‘BoBo’ Brooks Edition

Friday Night Wind-Down Open Thread – David ‘BoBo’ Brooks Edition

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This post is in: , , ,

You’ve probably seen something about this story already, if only out of the corner of your eye. It’s the ‘Reader added context’ that makes this tweet perfection… not to mention the number of replies (19.5 thousand and counting), most of them mocking:

You’d think by now, BoBo (he’s only 62! I could’ve sworn he was older than me, but I guess he’s one of those guys who was born age 40, and already wearing a button-down shirt) would’ve know better than to use social media after the first scotch, but…

Jamele Bouie *also* writes for the NYTimes…
Friday Night Wind-Down Open Thread - BoBo Brooks Edition

The Guardian was one of many major outlets to cover this saga (which I guess qualifies Brooks’ debacle as an international disgrace):

… Brooks posted his complaint on Wednesday. As of Friday morning, he had not posted again…

As of 9pm EST Friday, still no updates — possibly Wife #2 is keeping him away from the liquor cabinet?

Friday Night Wind-Down Open Thread - David 'BoBo' Brooks Edition

The New Republic:

… Americans don’t think the economy is terrible because of inflated prices at the airport. But they might be swayed by commentators like Brooks who alternate between touting how great American capitalism is and cherry-picking details from their own upper-class lifestyle as proof that we’re nearing the end.

Airport food is expensive—but it’s not that expensive. Maybe Brooks could use this opportunity to pivot into speculative fiction, but in the meantime, if he ever wants to comment on economic news, he may want to lay off the whiskey first.

Some of the better clapbacks I’ve seen:

And the stomach-turning winner, h/t Satby…

Brooks maaay just possibly be angling for a new job, one better aligned with his talents:
Friday Night Wind-Down Open Thread - David 'BoBo' Brooks Edition 1

Reader Interactions

173Comments

  2. 2.

    bbleh

    What is that … thing that the wieners are sticking out of?  It looks like maybe it’s (supposed to be) edible.

    The Derek Guy tweet actually made me lol.

  6. 6.

    Phylllis

    I’m really kind of shocked to discover he’s only a year older than me. He’s been doing the cranky gasbag bit for so long, I figured he had to be born circa early to mid-1950’s, at least

  8. 8.

    ColoradoGuy

    So D Brooks is a drunk as well as over-paid liar … and got caught red-handed at both.

    Well, it’s on-brand for the GOP (hello Boebert!)

    The real question is why the NYT management has propped him up for decades. To what purpose?

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    The Salad Bar Savonarola has been mockable since last century, all the way back to his time as a protege of Buckley at National review.

  11. 11.

    Cliosfanboy

    So, Brooks likes whiskey that’s “old enough to do pron”? Would that be Barely Legal pron, or MILF? Asking for a friend.

  14. 14.

    Alison Rose

    Anytime Brooks’ name comes up within earshot of my mom, she loves to tell the story of when she found out a coworker at the nonprofit my parents worked for my whole life (until they retired) had met Brooks at some fundraiser a few years earlier. Mom asked what he was like in person. Now, this coworker was a very kind-natured person, and she’d never heard him say anything mean or bad about anyone.

    His answer: “Oh, he was a total asshole. I spent the rest of the evening trying not to talk to him again.”

    Sounds about right.

  16. 16.

    Ruckus

    @Cliosfanboy:

    Mentally he’s 6 years, 2 months old.

    He wishes he had the maturity of a 26 yr old, let alone a 62 yr old.

    At least he’s not alone in being a, let’s see what’s that word, oh yes asswipe.

  17. 17.

    p.a.

    Again repeating Atrios on these people: why don’t they just STFU, GTFO, take their bags of money, and go enjoy life in Tuscany?  Instead of exposing themselves as gormless assholes regularly…

  18. 18.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @NotMax: That explains so much. Buckley was a stone racist and wasn’t afraid to hide it when he first founded National Socialist Review.

  19. 19.

    Ken

    The problem was the tweet … it made it seem like I was oblivious to something that was blindingly obvious

    Throwing “seem” in there just means he’s still oblivious to something that’s blindingly obvious to the rest of us.

  20. 20.

    wjca

    @Cliosfanboy: So, Brooks likes whiskey that’s “old enough to do pron”? Would that be Barely Legal pron, or MILF?

    First time I read that as “old enough to do pronporn ”.  Hey, it’s a right winger after all.

  21. 21.

    Another Scott

    @Cliosfanboy: @Phylllis:

    Bobo and I are both from the same graduation class at Chicago.  I never knew him or had classes with him, AFAIK.

    Good for Oates about mentioning an expense account.  I had the same thought.

    Finally, he’s a really weird eater based on that picture.  He takes the vegetables out of the burger, slathers it with ketchup, and then nibbles on the edges.  Who does that??

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  24. 24.

    Turgidson

    Brooks was probably *born* with male pattern baldness, graying hair and an insincere earnest look on his face.  So I’m not surprised people are shocked he’s not 75.  He’s seemed that old for 20 years now.

    It dumbfounds me endlessly that he’s managed to keep his “the conservative that liberal NYT/PBS consumers find insightful” grift going for this long.  He’s been an insufferable liar, fake and charlatan (kindest words I can think of to describe this waste of organic matter) the whole fucking time.

  26. 26.

    Tony G

    Whatever the New York Times is paying David Brooks, his product is way overpriced.  They could get better columns by paying minimum wage to a middle school kid.

  35. 35.

    karen marie

    If Musk wants to “save the world,” I recommend he set up a booth, charge people $1 to slap his fucking face, and donate the proceeds.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    @narya: Class of ’83.

    Magazine.uchicago.edu:

    Turning point. Brooks, who arrived at Chicago as a liberal, penned an April 5, 1983, Maroon column, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” that purported to be a biography of conservative pundit and National Review editor William F. Buckley Jr., including this scene from a typical day in the patrician’s life: “In the afternoons he is in the habit of going into crowded rooms and making everybody else feel inferior. The evenings are reserved for extended bouts of name-dropping.” As collegiate parodies go, it was a success. When Buckley arrived on campus to give a talk entitled “Reflections on Current Disorders,” he asked if Brooks was in the lecture audience—he wanted to offer him a job.

    But the parodist was in California, preparing to meet another famously conservative thinker, Milton Friedman, AM’33, in a local public-television debate, taking a socialist position against the free-market economist. As Brooks recalled in the New York Observer, “The show was essentially me making a point, and he making a two-sentence rebuttal which totally devastated my point, and then me sitting there with my mouth hanging open, trying to think what to say. That didn’t immediately turn me into a conservative, but….”

    College seniors often have inflated opinions of themselves, but …

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    Jeffro

    thanks, I’ll be seeing that Spaghetti-O bundt cake with the raw hot dogs sticking out of it IN MY NIGHTMARES

    (hopefully just for tonight, but still!!!)

  42. 42.

    Ohio Mom

    There are a number of NYT columnist for whom I jump straight to the Reader’s Picks comments: Brooks, Douthat, Friedman, Peter Coy (when he allows comments). There might be one of two more who aren’t coming to mind.

    I enjoy very much seeing their ideas and opinions ripped to shreds.

  43. 43.

    CaseyL

    I, too, am gobsmacked Brooks is only 62.

    I watched him on a news show a few years ago – can’t remember which one, which network – and he creeped me out big time.  Just the way he spoke, that medium-timbre almost-monotone, oleaginous drone, totally made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  I kept thinking, “This is how a child lurer talks.”

    Total disclosure: I read, and loved, “Bobos in Paradise” soon after it came out.  That was the first time I’d ever heard of David Brooks.  Made me tend to give him the benefit of the doubt for way too long.

  44. 44.

    Jeffro

    @Tony G:

    Whatever the New York Times is paying David Brooks, his product is way overpriced.  They could get better columns by paying minimum wage to a middle school kid.

    Right??

    However he got there, he needs to leave like, yesterday.

    Term limits for tv pundits and op-ed gasbags, who’s with me???

  45. 45.

    Suzanne

    Some shit is, like, stupid expensive, tho. I just took SuzMom for her first post-surgery outing to the movies, and brought Spawn the Younger. I bought the tickets, two adults and a child, and that was nearly $40. Then SuzMom bought a pretzel, a drink, and a slushy for Spawn, and that was almost $30. I don’t think the economy is terrible by any stretch, but I do think that crony capitalism sucks.

    David Brooks is still an asshole, tho. LAWL.

  46. 46.

    Anne Laurie

    @mrmoshpotato: Is that a Spaghetti-O ring filled with hot dogs?  Seriously, what the fuck is that?

    Post-WWII, pre-‘The Sixties’, there was a marketing fad for designing ‘Inventive New Things You Can Do with Processed Foods to Inspire Your Next Neighborhood Get-Together!!!’

    Basically, an unholy / uneasy nexus of We need to get women out of the workplace and back in the kitchen and How the fvk are we gonna sell canned pasta in ketchup without actually saying ‘what to give your kids when you just don’t *care* any more?

    Undiagnosed PTSD in WWII vets who came home to start nuclear families in their nice new suburban neighborhoods are, IMO, an underrated factor in all the current histories of post-war America.  Sure, the rest of the world was full of damaged losers, but *we* were winners, right?

  47. 47.

    narya

    @Another Scott: Ah, okay. I just discovered that that tool is YOUNGER than I am, which . . . is depressing.

    I was there for grad school from 86 to 93, so we didn’t overlap; I didn’t have a lot of interaction w/ undergrads except when I taught a couple of quarters. Given that, among other things, I was an Oberlin undergrad, UC was . . . a challenge. (Oberlin’s official motto is “learning and labor,” but I’ve always contended its unofficial motto is “work hard, do good, play hard.”)

  52. 52.

    Chetan Murthy

    @TeezySkeezy: Erik Loomis over at LG&M used to make a habit of finding interesting “X and Y in Jello” pics+recipes from history.  Like mayo/shrimp/pineapple jello.

  53. 53.

    Alison Rose

    Do any of y’all ever just look over at your sleeping pet and almost squeal out loud over how cute they are?

    Please just say yes so I don’t feel like too much of a dork.

    BUT SHE’S JUST SO DAMN CUTE WHEN SHE’S ASLEEP.

  58. 58.

    Turgidson

    @satby:

     

    indeed.  If I won a $1B powerball jackpot, first thing I’d do is buy a nationally circulated newspaper and put driftglass in charge of it and writing as many op-eds as possible.

  59. 59.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ohio Mom: Oh yes, undiagnosed PSTD, that describes 99% of the fathers in my neighborhood growing up.

    And they eventually gifted PTSD to many of their wives, and more than a few of their kids!

    (Thus, in many cases, leading to the ‘youth rebellion’ of the 1960s… )

  60. 60.

    Alison Rose

    @eclare: SAME. I can’t recall the last time I slept solidly through the night, so every day I feel sluggish and tired, but if I try to nap, that just makes it worse. And then there’s my cat, snoozing away whenever she pleases with zero problems.

  62. 62.

    Richard

    What a fool. I was surprised to learn that he is only 62 years old. He talks like he is still blue ribbon debate winner from Asshole High School, 1910. I am surprised that he didn’t say- do you know who I am? He should step aside. It is idiotic to let this guy embarrass himself. He already has bags full of money. He should do something else. He has turned into a doddering old idiot, right before our eyes. Me, I drink my whiskey at home.

  64. 64.

    TeezySkeezy

    @Chetan Murthy: Thank you! I was trying to remember where I first got introduced to aspic pics and that was it!

    And, yes, if you tell someone verbally that you look at gross aspics online, you should def clarify what you mean.

  65. 65.

    frosty

    @satby: I need to find that on some streaming service and watch it again. The bombardier in the nose of the B-17s that are going to be scrapped …

  68. 68.

    Tony G

    @Jeffro: Absolutely.  Many of the columnists at the “liberal” New York Times are worse than worthless though; Bobo is not alone.  Jamelle Bouie, Charles Blow and, of course, the evil Krugman monster are good.  The rest?  Either mediocre or terrible.  I think that the problem with the New York Times is the their target readership is arrogant rich people who consider themselves to be too refined to read the New York Post.  Maybe the Times has always been that way, I don’t know, but it certainly has been that way for the past few decades.

  71. 71.

    Tony G

    @Anne Laurie: That sounds about right.  The parents of my (Boomer) generation had grown up in poverty during the Great Depression and, in most cases, the men had gone through one kind of hell or another during World War Two.  A damaged generation at a time when showing any sign of weakness was unacceptable.  Drink and smoke until you finally drop dead.  The Boomers, of course, were equally screwed up, but in a different way.

  72. 72.

    Jackie

    Why are we (BJ) giving Brooks attention? We should be shunning him and giving more attention to Biden being the First President to join the picket line!

  74. 74.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Is anybody else gagging on the racist, sexist ‘White Man’s Burden’ overtones in that paean to Musk?

    EDIT – Still gagging.  Isn’t this one of the foundations of Brooks’ schtick, though?  Hail the pinnacle of creation, the Mediocre White Man?  May he who inherited his wealth forever fail upwards?

    @Alison Rose:

    I can’t recall the last time I slept solidly through the night, so every day I feel sluggish and tired

    Get checked for sleep apnea.  I had to stop using the machine for unrelated health reasons, but briefly I tasted restful sleep and it was a divine beauty.

  75. 75.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Although would take issue with #6; unflavored gelatin has a myriad of uses.

    I think unflavored Jello was still the 90% sugar, 10% gelatin powder mix.

  78. 78.

    sdhays

    @Turgidson:

    It dumbfounds me endlessly that he’s managed to keep his “the conservative that liberal NYT/PBS consumers find insightful” grift going for this long.

    He has had a lot of help. Before COVID, I sometimes would be driving home when the local public classical radio station would broadcast the Snooze Hour and I’d occasionally get caught listening to “Shields and Brooks”. Brooks was smooth and could say things that were reasonable or sounded reasonable and then fold in his whoppers while Mark Shields’ jowls would still be flapping.

    Mark Shields couldn’t answer a damn question directly to save his life. I remember one time the topic was something Trump was doing and fucking Mark Shields took 2 whole minutes making a stammering, uninteresting ode to John McCain – who had nothing to do with the topic and wasn’t especially “in the news” either – and only started to find his point when it was time to move on. Sometimes, Brooks would be the one making decent points while Mark just got confused (and stared wistfully, I imagine since I was listening on the radio, into space thinking of John Fucking McCain).

    I finally just turned off the radio if I heard they were coming on.

  83. 83.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: first time I tried Vienna sausages on a Boy Scout camping trip, the next morning I threw them all up.  Never ate them again.

  84. 84.

    Steeplejack

    @Anne Laurie:

    See The Gallery of Regrettable Food, by James Lileks, or, better—worse—just Google “regrettable food” and click the “Images” tab. Be forewarned.

  85. 85.

    FelonyGovt

    OT so apparently Empty Greene called Biden an “old fart” in a tweet in response to Biden’s announcement of a new Office of Gun Safety. What a paragon of class, dignity and delicacy she is.

  86. 86.

    Origuy

    When you’re prepping for a colonoscopy, gelatin is one of the few things that you can eat. Except it can’t be red, because it stains the inside of the colon. There are very few flavors that aren’t a shade of red or orange, especially in the sugar-free range. Likely only to have lime on the shelves.

    Which reminds me of an appointment next week. I guess I should start stocking up.

  87. 87.

    Redshift

    @Ken:

    I think unflavored Jello was still the 90% sugar, 10% gelatin powder mix.

    Oh, no no no! It was not. In circumstances that would take too long to explain, I once happened upon what I didn’t realize was unflavored gelatin with food coloring to make it look like lemon jello. Trust me, it did not contain any sugar.

  89. 89.

    marklar

    Years ago, Brooks highlighted one of my papers in his ‘science roundups’ columns. He described the results accurately, but completely flipped my interpretation in the Discussion section. When I wrote him to tell him about his misinterpreting (heck, presenting the opposite interpretation), he responded that his perspective was more interesting. Since then, I’ve taken all ‘science reporting’ with a grain of salt.

  92. 92.

    Citizen Alan

    @Chetan Murthy: Vienna (pronounced “vi-EE-na”) sausages are one of those foods that most people love when they’re very little kids. And then, most of them wake up one day and realize they taste revolting.

  94. 94.

    Steeplejack

    @frosty:

    The Best Years of Our Lives is currently available on Prime, Kanoply, Plex and Freevee. Great movie! Won seven Oscars, including best picture.

  100. 100.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Citizen Alan: huh, in north texas, it was “vee-eh-nee” with just a bit of “ah” in that middle syllable.  Or maybe more precisely, a but of a nasal drawl on that middle syllable.

  101. 101.

    Steeplejack

    @frosty:

    I love the P-38 Lightning. As a kid I made all of those Revell and Aurora airplane kits. Sniffed a lot of glue (inadvertently). I always had trouble with the decals.

  105. 105.

    wjca

    @Jackie: Speaking about decorum…

    “Decorum”, or rather “lack of decorum,” is easily understood.  It means “When they are so uncouth as to behave the way I do.  Except it’s OK if I’m the one doing it.”

  109. 109.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @ColoradoGuy: I know a lot of liberals who think he’s fine. I have never, ever understood it. They think he’s some kind of even-keel conservative-sort-of dweebish nice guy. I think it’s because they just can’t admit to themselves that their beloved Times is a dumpster fire when it comes to political reporting and commentary.

    Hell, even if he was to the left of AOC, I’d still wonder WTF they see in the guy. He is a deadly dull writer with a below average intellect. He’s smarmy, lazy, and fuzzy-headed. He’s paste if paste was entirely useless. As a color, he aspires to beige. As a sound, he’s somewhere between a refrigerator hum and a rolling slowly across a very even wooden floor.

    I would wish upon him that he step on a rake, but that would be too exciting.

  110. 110.

    sab

    Also too, another thing David Brooks is apparently unaware of, is that financially struggling families don’t eat out at airport restaurants or elsewhere. I can feed a whole family at home for what a restaurant meal for one person costs. The reason is there is a whole restaurant staff that also needs to earn their living. Restaurant eating is kind of a luxury.

    Sorry. I just looked up his segment defending his tweet on Snooze Hour and it pissed me off again. If restaurant meals were less expensive then ordinary Americans would be better off? No!

  114. 114.

    Redshift

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    I know a lot of liberals who think he’s fine. I have never, ever understood it. They think he’s some kind of even-keel conservative-sort-of dweebish nice guy. I think it’s because they just can’t admit to themselves that their beloved Times is a dumpster fire when it comes to political reporting and commentary.

    I think it’s because his entire purpose is to be a “reasonable conservative,” to allow liberals to have the comfortable idea that most people on the other side are like him, and the crazies are an aberration. Particularly people who are mostly liberal in their beliefs but don’t really get involved in politics.

    Personally, I’ve always found him insufferable and wrongheaded, but apparently just speaking/writing in a reasonable tone is all it takes to convince some people you’re okay. (Look at George Will, for example.)

  115. 115.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Overall, experts predict a busy Labor Day holiday weekend with domestic bookings up 4 percent compared to last year and international bookings up a whopping 44 percent. That follows a very busy summer during which airfare to Europe was the highest it’s been in at least five years.

    In fact, the Transportation Security Administration made history ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend when it screened the most passengers ever in a single day in the agency’s history.

    Super Bowl LVII was the most-watched U.S.-based telecast of all time, according to revised data announced Tuesday by ratings agency Nielson.

    The Kansas City Chiefs’ 38-35 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Feb. 12 drew an average of 115.1 million viewers across all platforms, nearly 2 million more than Nielsen’s previous announcement.

    The updated numbers show that this year’s Super Bowl surpassed the previous record set in 2015

    Both July and August saw global box office perform above pre-pandemic averages. Gower Street calculates that the global box office reached $4.54 billion in July 2023, some 17% ahead of the month’s average during 2017-2019, and was an all-time record for July.

    The “Barbenheimer” phenomenon (both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” released on July 21 in North America and on the same day in multiple other markets) was a significant factor.

    LSU-Iowa national-championship women’s basketball game annihilated the old record-highs.

    The average of 9.9 million viewers on ABC Sunday afternoon (it peaked at 12.6 million across all platforms) was more than last season’s Cotton, Orange and Sugar bowls. It was more than the season-average for the NFL’s Thursday night telecasts on Prime last year.

    There hasn’t been an NHL Stanley Cup Final game with as many viewers in the last 50 years.

    Major League Baseball attendance is increasing at the highest rate it has in more than two decades as fans continue to fill stadium stands this summer.

    Actions speak louder than words:

    Travel – BOOOMING

    Leisure activities – BOOOMING

    Movies – BOOOMING

    Sports – BOOOMING

    People have disposable income and they’re happy.

  116. 116.

    JAFD

    Greetings from Newark!
    Can say nothing about food at airport, but if you get hungry here, several Brazilian barbecue places in the Ironbound will feed you to repletion at quite reasonable price.
    Running around thru day yesterday (Friday). Started out warm and sunny, by midafternoon, clouds had rolled in, temp dropped ten degrees, felt like fall.
    At University Hospital for eye exam, including being ‘practice patient’ for resident. Prescript for new glasses, vision otherwise OK.
    Happy Equinox, everyone !

  118. 118.

    prostratedragon

    @Anne Laurie:

    Undiagnosed PTSD in WWII vets who came home to start nuclear families in their nice new suburban neighborhoods are, IMO, an underrated factor in all the current histories of post-war America.

    It’s all over popular media down to the early 60s, one reason I’ve come to find it fascinating. There’s another story to be told about the big marketing push to force all that to the background, starting in the late 50s, despite those traumatized people still largely walking around.

  120. 120.

    wjca

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Major League Baseball attendance is increasing at the highest rate it has in more than two decades as fans continue to fill stadium stands this summer.

    Except in Oakland.  Admittedly a special case, involving an owner knows nothing about baseball, and seems to view it primarily as a mechanism for extorting government underwriting of his real estate deals.

  122. 122.

    TriassicSands

    @ColoradoGuy: The real question is why the NYT management has propped him up for decades. To what purpose?

    Well, they have to hire some “conservative” columnists, and the pool is generally horrendous. As bad as Brooks is, the Post outdoes the Times with their right wing columnists — Marc Thiessen, Hugh Hewitt, Henry Olsen, et al. Thiessen must be the worst columnist this side of Qanon.

    @Tony G: They could get better columns by paying minimum wage to a middle school kid.

    Or they could hire some of the WaPo columnists who make Brooks look like a combination of Socrates, Plato, Hume, Locke, and John Stuart Mill all rolled into one.

    Apparently, the Post did a nationwide search to find the absolute worst, dumbest, most offensive “conservative” columnists and hired them. I think the main criterion for the Times was, in a way, inoffensiveness. They may not have succeeded, but they are way ahead of the Post.

  126. 126.

    ColoradoGuy

    Just finished reading the James H. Jones Alfred Kinsey biography, where swimming against the right-wing tide in the early Fifties broke him. Alfred Kinsey apparently never realized the sheer weight and scale of the reactionary forces of that period, and that telling the truth would only energize his numerous enemies.

    One factor was the rage of the Republican party at being out of power for twenty straight years … they were determined to get all those pointy-headed FDR intellectuals out of government for good, and that hatred of intellectuals has became a permanent feature of the party. The destruction of Kinsey was merely collateral damage, while demonization of LGBTQ people would be a reliable vote-getter for the GOP for the next sixty years.

    I grew up in Japan and Hong Kong, and was shocked when I finally came Stateside in 1966 what a fraud Bill Buckley was. I went to a pretty decent British school in Hong Kong, and quickly realized Buckley’s public persona nothing more than using obsolete Victorian three-dollar words to disguise quasi-fascist concepts and make them respectable to the mainstream TV audience.

    His intellectual pretensions enraged me … he was the most prominent fraud in the country (alongside Billy Graham), and astoundingly, had a massive public platform for his bigotry, racism, and xenophobia. He was the high-class precursor to Rush Limbaugh, who aimed at a lower middle class demographic, while Buckley’s sophistry was pitched to the average reader of TIME magazine.

    D Brooks is the low-dollar successor to Buckley, without the Victorian nostalgia or three-dollar wordsmithing. He’s a walking, talking TIME magazine editorial from the Fifties, which I guess appeals to a certain class of NYT reader.

  128. 128.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    The ingredients in the picture in the tweet at the top of this post are clearly not the same as those in the recipe video. I guess they didn’t follow the recipe exactly.

  129. 129.

    Betty Cracker

    @ColoradoGuy: The Kinsey biography sounds fascinating. You’re right about the vicious fraud Buckley. His malign influence lives on, in Brooks as you noted and in people like Samuel Alito and Ron DeSantis. Vanity Fair had an interesting piece a while back connecting those dots in higher education.

    I met Buckley when he was a speaker at the University of Florida in the late 80s and I was a student. I had a work-study job at the performing arts center and was tasked with showing him the facility and fetching snacks.

    He was as awful as you’d imagine — a leering, desiccated hyena who radiated condescension like heat from a Ben Franklin stove. If I’d possessed the wit back then to understand how destructive and evil his life’s work was, I’d have spit in his tea.

  130. 130.

    Baud

    I’m glad people had a good time making fun of this idiot, but I’m also pleased some people recognize that, as ham-fisted as it was, it was an attempt at anti-Biden propaganda.

    To compete with the Post’s Alexandra Petri, the NYT should fire Brooks and replace him with Betty Cracker.

  133. 133.

    ColoradoGuy

    The British school in Hong Kong, King George the Fifth, gave me the benefit of a University-level education in English and History, so I was ahead of the game when I arrived Stateside in 1996. I was shocked by the heavily slanted news reporting about Vietnam (in Hong Kong it was obvious to all the war was a disaster and unwinnable by 1966) and this self-appointed expert on TV who was a crypto-Nazi hiding behind vocabulary most Americans didn’t understand. To me, he spoke thinly disguised Nazi filth … basically Lord Haw Haw hiding behind obscure Victorian language.

    I was astonished he was allowed to broadcast … in most countries Nazi language is banned from the air, for very good reasons. It took Gore Vidal to finally rip the mask off this fraud and call him to his face that he was a crypto-Nazi, which anyone familiar with fascism could see as plain as day.

    In Hong Kong, I met several people who had endured years of Japanese prison camps during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. The Japanese were vile beyond description. I also met people who narrowly escaped Mao’s slaughter of middle-class business owners in the early Fifties, which was cruder and more brutal, but not as perverted and deranged as the Japanese Imperial Army and the terrifying Kempetai secret police (who made the SS seem mild and civilized).

    It was quite an education for an impressionable 16-year-old, and removed any illusions what fascism or Maoism were really like. And then I see this damnable Nazi speak with his fake cultured accent … an American pretending to sound upper-class English … on public TV, with his own TV show! Nazi Hour, in full NTSC color! And the pundits nodding along, too ignorant of recent history to realize the full horror of what he was actually saying.

    I think the fake accent grated most of all. Hell, after five years of Hong Kong, I had a more authentic posh accent than this TV fraud from Yale.

  134. 134.

    satby

    @ColoradoGuy: I was born exactly 10 years and 10 days after VE day; and grew up surrounded by men and women who served, including immigrants who had been in various resistance groups (my mom’s friend Neddy was in the Dutch resistance, a friend’s dad fought with the free French in Africa before the U.S. entered the war). WWII and its horrors weren’t ancient history, it was recent and affected us still. I’m sure many even older jackals have similar memories. The fifties were so warped by people so traumatized and eager to forget, like conservatives today who also want to go “back” to that time that is, and was, imaginary.

  135. 135.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Ha! I’d take that gig if they’d let me work remotely from the swamp! Speaking of which, there’s something that sounds large stomping around in the yard in the dark, and it’s driving the dogs nuts. I can’t locate it with my flashlight from inside. It sounds like a bear but is probably a puny little possum.

    @satby: I’ve seen clips here and there but never the whole thing. Will check it out — thanks!

  136. 136.

    ColoradoGuy

    Anyone that’s experienced Nazi or Japanese fascism, or Maoism, or Eastern European Communism, will never forget. Americans cannot conceive just how twisted and perverted these systems were.

  137. 137.

    ColoradoGuy

    Which is why Democrats should avoid the word “Socialism”. There are millions of immigrants, or descendants of immigrants, who have terrible memories of these systems in Latin America or Eastern Europe.

  138. 138.

    Betty Cracker

    @ColoradoGuy: Florida Repubs relentlessly use the word “socialism” as a cudgel, and it apparently resonates with some immigrant/immigrant descendant communities here who have helped keep the GOP in power here for decades. While I try to be mindful of what they or their families experienced in corrupt “socialist” hellholes and sympathize with their suffering, I believe as citizens and voters they have an obligation to educate themselves on American politics and understand that word in the U.S. context. AOC calling herself a “democratic socialist” doesn’t mean she wants a Fidel Castro-style authoritarian state. FL Repubs who call Joe Biden or Barack Obama socialists are lying sacks of shit.

  141. 141.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Tony G: ​
     

    Whatever the New York Times is paying David Brooks, his product is way overpriced. They could get better columns by paying minimum wage to a middle school kid.

    It would be hard to come up with a better example than Brooks that being a columnist for a major paper is the equivalent of being tenured. Hell, these days even being tenured isn’t as secure anymore as Brooks’ perch seems to be.

    If the FTFNYT had any integrity at all, they’d put him out to pasture. There have to be thousands of people in this country who could fill that spot with genuine intelligence and insight. Millions who could fill it with more of both than Brooks provides.

    David Brooks is a week younger than Barack Obama, but comes across as about a generation older.

  142. 142.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Do you have flagstones in your yard? Someone toldme about hearing a bunch of “thumps” one night. When he looked in the morning he found that a bear had flipped a bunch of flagstones over, hunting up grubs.

  143. 143.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: Yikes! We don’t have flagstones — the sound was more like crashing through the vegetation. It was probably just a possum or armadillo. Maybe a deer. I’ve never seen a bear back here, but I know they are around. Our bears aren’t nearly as scary as bears out west and up north, but I wouldn’t want my yappy dogs to run onto one!

    ETA: Badger the Boston has the good sense to hang back and keep quiet, but Pete the Frenchton bristles up and growls like a mastiff. He thinks he’s a bad ass. He weighs 25 lbs.

  144. 144.

    Geminid

    @ColoradoGuy: Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger, after eking out her 2020 reelection by 4,000 votes:

       I never want to hear the word “Socialism” again in my life.

    That was kind of a funny election. Spanberger was one of 20 Democrats who’d been endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Her opponent was endorsed by the Club for Growth. At their debate, Spanberger and Nick Freitas flatly disagreed on every issue except support for rural broadband.

    Government funding of rural broadband is clearly a form of Socialism, but around here politicians are like, “Mom, Apple Pie, and Broadband.”

  148. 148.

    lowtechcyclist

    @FelonyGovt: ​
     

    so apparently Empty Greene called Biden an “old fart” in a tweet in response to Biden’s announcement of a new Office of Gun Safety.

    Spake the middle-aged bimbo.

  149. 149.

    Gregory

    It’s fun to mock what a pompous ass Brooks is, but Stonekettle’s point should not go unnoticed among all the whimsy — Brooks was being dishonest; the funny part is he didn’t consider how easily his dishonesty would be busted.

    If memory serves me correctly, Paul Krugman commented several times that NYT policy forbade him from pointing out when Brooks was misleading the paper’s readers.

  150. 150.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @ColoradoGuy:

    I am far, far from those regimes, but I have read enough history to be horrified.  If you count famines, and you should if they’re ideology-caused, Mao killed more people than anyone in history.  It’s not even close.  Never learned a damn thing from it, either.

    And the Japanese in WW2 were a nightmare.  The rape and murder are evil but in a conventional way.  Stuff like propaganda to convince Okinawans to commit mass suicide when the Allies freed the island is a bizarre, deranged level of racism.

  154. 154.

    billcinsd

    @Cliosfanboy: Well, he used to like MILF porn whiskey, but then in his late 50s his tastes changed and he settled on barely legal, doesn’t know deli meats porn

  155. 155.

    Miss Bianca

    @Cliosfanboy: Yeah, this guy is only 2 years older than me? I thought he had to be in his 70s at least – seems like he’s been trying to scold us all away from Moral Hazard for centuries.

  157. 157.

    Miss Bianca

    @CaseyL: I tried reading Bobos in Paradise about, oh, 10 or 12 years ago – couldn’t finish it.

    And that’s the last time I’ve ever willingly tried to read anything by David Brooks.

  158. 158.

    Miss Bianca

    @Citizen Alan:

    Vienna (pronounced “vi-EE-na”) sausages are one of those foods that most people love when they’re very little kids. And then, most of them wake up one day and realize they taste revolting.

    Kind of like creamed corn.

  160. 160.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Cliosfanboy: Wait, he’s only 62?? I though he was at least 80.

    I saw his photos & thought, Huh – so 62 is the new 80? I’m in my mid-70s, not particularly careful of what I ingest or how much I exercise, and I look younger than BoBo**!

    ** FTR, he may be BoBo but he ought to be BoZo, as in clown.

  162. 162.

    Bill Arnold

    Reasonably good odds that Brooks was trying to pull a NYT Pitchbot tweet (the ones with the template about expensive eateries/bar prices) after a couple of drinks at an airport, and failed.
    A Next Level failure, if so.

  163. 163.

    Pink Tie

    This won’t count as political or journalistic analysis, since it’s mostly been said, but…

    Can you IMAGINE having to sit right next to Bobo on a flight after he’s sucked down all that whiskey?! I feel ill just thinking about it.

  165. 165.

    wjca

    @JAFD: Mayhaps is time to start the “Bring the A’s Back to Philly !” movement ? ;-)

    Why not?  It would let us all say: “See, sometimes we want to turn back the clock a century, too!” ;-)

    Reactionaries at BJ.  Who’d a thought it?

  166. 166.

    Ramalama

    Just here to say… fcking Bobo.

    Tried reading that book before I knew what a wanker Bobo was and is and, nope, could not do it. Eyes rebelled. Brain farted. Shutdown, shutdown.

  168. 168.

    Elizabelle

    I’m so glad you all are still discussing the fatuous (and possibly alcoholic) Bobo Brooks.

    We won’t hear about it for a while, but his bosses at the FTF NY Times may not be laughing at this one.  It was pulling back the curtain.  They are (with their political reporting and too many of their columnists) one big Oz.

  169. 169.

    Citizen Alan

    @Redshift: I am reminded of how the writers of star trek seem to believe that the word “logical” meant “speaks in a monotone voice” to judge by all the absolute nonsense various Vulcans spouted out over the years to which everyone else just nodded sagely.

  171. 171.

    Citizen Alan

    @Geminid:

    Honestly,  we would have hard-core Scandinavian-style Socialism today in America if LBJ had been willing to limit the benefits of it to whites.

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