I always knew David Brooks was an asshole ....

god he looks like an unholy combination of pedant and pedo

https://www.nytexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/David-Brooks.jpeg

This fucking guy:

America is creative because of its moral materialism — when social values and economic ambitions get down in the mosh pit and dance. Santorum is in the fray.

Ew

"But having said all that, I’m delighted that Santorum is making a splash"

http://images.pictureshunt.com/pics/t/the_fray-4545.jpg

David Brooks in a mosh pit: clutching his glasses close to his chest in a loose fist, being knocked around, cursing with frustration, and on the verge of tears

Main Street Republicans like Romney usually beat social conservatives like Santorum because there are just so many more of them in the Republican electorate.

hmmm.

i mean, surely Romney will beat Santorum, but *are* they more "Main Street" dudes (what the fuck ever that means at this point) than there are "social conservatives" in the GOP?

Vaguely pithy line:

I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.

Vaguely disturbing note:

I brought my 12-year-old son on this latest trip. My rule is that if a candidate can’t relate well to a 12-year-old, they’ll never win a general election. He approached all the candidates, and they were all wonderful except Gingrich. But that wasn’t Gingrich’s fault. My son, whose heroes include John Boehner and Tupac Shakur, picked an argument about gay marriage.

I can't understand ANYONE naming John Frickin' Boehner as a hero. I don't care how old you are.

I can't understand anyone naming a politician as a hero, and my comment isn't just snark.

Eh, hero worship is where you find it, and why not politics. I would have thought one of the most singularly uncharismatic and barely-in-control-of-events Speakers of recent years would not rank with that status, though.

Is Boehner appropriate for 12 year olds?!?

well, santorum is appropriate for consenting adults

I don't even understand what "moral materialism" is?

other heroes of David Brooks, Jr: Haley Barbour and Nas

David Brooks's own heroes as a child: James Watt and Bootsy Collins

"Haley Barbour and Nas"

Hearing this to the rhythm of the "Jay, Biggie and Nas" line in "Where I'm From"

I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.

oh noes

"sometimes" he "wonders" IF ? hello

tbf it's only in his darkest moments of abject terror

Democrats, meanwhile, have shifted their emphasis from lifting up the poor to pounding down the rich. Democratic candidates no longer emphasize early childhood education and community-building. Instead they embrace the pseudo-populist Occupy Wall Street hokum — the opiate of the educated classes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/opinion/brooks-free-market-socialism-.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Oy veh

Dear NYT I will subscribe for life if you fire this fuck.

the prob is if they fire him they'd hire someone even worse

i was just talking with some democrats the other day about early childhood education, and they were like pshh fuck that

Pretty sure nytimes keeps David Brooks around as a real-life straw man conservative

the prob is if they fire him they'd hire someone even worse

Yes.

i'm not so sure. they hired william kristol, who demonstrated his contempt for the times by being a shitty columnist even by his own standards and taking its money for a year. i wonder if another marquee conservative wouldn't do basically the same.

The subtext of that column seems to be that our economy is failing because not enough men are like David Brooks

Pareene's regular excoriations of Brooks are always a highlight of Salon

Democratic candidates no longer emphasize early childhood education and community-building. Instead they embrace the pseudo-populist Occupy Wall Street hokum — the opiate of the educated classes.

But this very much sums up the view of a certain segment of the moneyed right -- the idea that progressive taxation has nothing to do with the traditional goals of the Democratic party, but is in fact a means of "punishing" successful people -- as if the idea were to take away half their money and then set it on fire!

Hey, life is zero sum. If you don't believe me, ask a conservative.

Pareene's regular excoriations of Brooks are always a highlight of Salon

― Put another Juggle in, in the Juggalodeon (kingfish), Tuesday, January 24, 2012 2:30 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Links plz!

I can think of some much more inventive punishments for "successful" people than just burning their money

Do you want to be an extremely "successful" person (as in you have a shit-ton of money) or do you want to live in a successful society where the actual success of those who do well in business reflect in the quality of the world you live in and enrich the communities responsible for generating that wealth and create a fertile environment for more successes?

People who think success is measured only in dollars they get paid are like kids who think about goal completion only in terms of how many cookies or toys they get

Two of Pareene's bits:

http://www.salon.com/2010/11/22/hack_list_30/

Repeat offenses: armchair sociology, easy generalizations in lieu of research or analysis, boringness.

Representative quote:

“The magic is not felt by a lot of people. It’s not felt, obviously, by a lot of less educated people, downscale people. They just look at Obama, and they don’t see anything. And so, Obama’s problem is he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who could go into an Applebee’s salad bar, and people think he fits in naturally there.”

(Note: Applebee’s does not have salad bars.)

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/12_david_brooks/

He can make a defense of racist demagoguing sound benign. He obfuscates and misleads on income inequality, while, as always, accusing those damned coastal liberal elites of disrespecting Real Americans. Accusing liberals of disrespecting Real Americans is one of Brooks’ go-to lines, even though there’s absolutely no evidence that he has any clue whatsoever how the middle and working classes live in America in 2011.

Everything, with Brooks, comes down to “values.” Bad things happen because of a lack of the correct “values,” and the correct “values” are essentially white upper-middle-class mid-20th-century bourgeois values. Poverty happens because the poor don’t have those values. Earthquakes happen because of a lack of those values. The sexual abuse of children happens because — you guessed it — America lost those important pre-’60s values. The abuses at Penn State, in Brooks’ worldview, went unreported because America has become “a society oriented around our inner wonderfulness.”

HACKIEST 2011 MOMENT:
That linked column on the abuses at Penn State was the sanitized version of Brooks’ comments on “Meet the Press,” in which he blamed both the failure to report the sexual abuses to the police and the riots following the firing of Joe Paterno more explicitly on “30 or 40 years” of “muddying the moral waters.” If it weren’t for women’s lib and the self-esteem movement, those kids could’ve been protected!

I blame Applebee's for not having salad bars.

"Applebees doesn't have salad bars" seems like an excellent one-line response to partisan hackery in itself

if applebee's had salad bars america would be a much healthier country

I didn't know until recently that Applebees has a full bar!

It is your neighborhood bar and grill, especially if your neighborhood is a shopping mall.

I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.

This sentence is truly fucked up. I'm white, btw.

I just watched the episode of 30 Rock where Donaghy and Lemon go to Stone Mountain Georgia to find a new cast member and it reminded me of David Brooks a bit

It’s always interesting to read the quotations of people who knew a mass murderer before he killed. They usually express complete bafflement that a person who seemed so kind and normal could do something so horrific.

FUCK. You beat me to it.

this is a really choice column. prime brooks facepalm.

haha every time this thread is bumped I think "christ, what is it now, David Brooks?"

He had a stupid one earlier in the week again imploring Obama to cut entitlements and debt and balance the budget now in a right-wing conservative manner, but which he redefines as moderate and sensible. It was formula David Brooks.

According to this view, most people are naturally good, because nature is good.

Yawn. V tired of this conservative cliche about the materialist moral perspective.

d brooks would like to disabuse you of the idea that people are naturally good, remember that we are all shameful pots of shit and sin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luobOzreRq4