TheAgitator.com
Shorter David Brooks
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008My colleagues Matt Welch and Jesse Walker rightly throw water on David Brooks’ temper tantrum in today’s New York Times. Me, I think Brooks’ column—and every Brooks column—can be summed up with this line, from his column today:
What we need in this situation is authority.
This is neoconservativism in a nutshell: An authority fetish coupled with general contempt for markets, masses, and choice. Just put a few (Brooks-approved) folks in charge, and give them unfettered power.
We live in odd times when one of the NY Times’ two resident conservative opens his column with an ode to . . . Franklin Roosevelt. Not to mention that the other resident conservative is William Kristol.
Fun fact: The word “authority” appears in today’s Brooks column six times!
If that clown is a Conservative, I’d really hate to see what they define as a Liberal.
I can’t attach myself to any party, or even ideological identity, because some asshat like this, purporting to affiliate with me, will make me look a complete douche.
Sounds like a solid foundation for radical individualism, Matthew. The world needs more individuals who don’t abdicate self-responsibility.
Authority is the water that David Brooks and his kind swim in — they don’t even notice it. In fairness to Brooks, every word printed in the New York Times is meant to reinforce authority. It is propaganda of the highest order.
The Times’ raison d’etre is mass hypnosis.
This piece is disgusting.
“(the Europeans, apparently, have not even begun to acknowledge their toxic debt)”
Of course, those idiotic, shortsighted Europeans and their $10 trillion debt. Oh, that’s not theirs? Whose? Oh.
It’s funny, when I read David Brooks, I just chuckle and say (sometimes to meself, sometimes aloud) “Is this guy serious? There’s no way this guy takes himself seriously.” And then I see David Brooks on the NewsHour and I get angry and say (aloud) “That smug SOB, he can’t be serious”.
“And let us recognize above all the 228 who voted no — the authors of this revolt of the nihilists.”
WHAT? Even though I can’t abide the two parties, I’m damn glad they voted against the bailout. I don’t think nihilism is the correct word…
This is the reason I carry the NYTimes and Washington Post with me when I go backpacking – toilet paper.
Hey, can anyone tell me how to get italics or lighten the color of text I cut and paste so my posts can look normal? Thanks a million!
A liberal is a conservative and a conservative is a liberal. Big government, when you have just the right guy in charge, works like a charm. So well in fact we can get rid of these pesky markets. Spend lots of money, promise to fix things that are way beyond any type of leaders ability to fix, and lie like a rug.
Pretty much sums up both parties, IMO.
Yes, you use html tags. Google html tags and you should see plenty of examples. Trying to post them here as an explanation/tutorial is often difficult.
You can use italics by using tags around the quoted section
That is, if the tags didn’t disappear. Use the greater than/less than brackets like this but reversed. around i(to start) and /i (to end) >i<
Thanks, Steve and David!
blockquote and /blockquote are the tags that indent the text and has a vertical bar to the left of the text.
Brooks is despised within the Conservative movement nearly as much as Lieberman is with the Liberals. A true conservative or classical liberal columnist would need a full-time food tester in the NY Times Building, presumably one not on the dime of the Graying (Alzheimer inflicted) Lady.