Obviously, David Brooks must be back from his book leave. It appears that his critics are tanned, rested, and ready. My work here was done by others.
Funny thing, though. I hadn’t noticed that Brooks was missing.
I guess that answers one perennial philosophical question. Does it raise others?
DAMN!!! And here I just thought he had finally become so irrelevant that no one was linking to, or referencing, his vapid screeds.
Other question raised: Does anyone care?
Never come back before your absence has been noted. Although in Brooks’ case that may never have happened.
If a Brooks pundited in a forest all alone would anyone hear it?
How ’bout the NYT gives that a try for a decade or two, then get back to us?
It answers the obvious question, but Brooks also invariable evokes questions about the sound of one hand wanking.
The driftglass link had this priceless riff, from a Meet the Village transcript of a circle jerk involving Brooks, Chuck Todd, and David Gregory. (Doesn’t putting those three in the same room endanger the very fabric of the time-space-wank continuum?) Either Brooks or Todd – it’s not clear which, but it sure sounds like Bobo – barfed up this gem in recounting early US history:
“Sort of the northern part, you had the initial settlers were okay with collectivism. But the folks that immigrated and migrated to the south weren’t so much that way.”
Did he just characterize the practice of 400 years of slavery as “folks weren’t so much okay with collectivism.”?!?!?!?!??!?!!!!!!
Why, yes. Yes, he did. With, very specifically, no mention of the people who were bought or stolen and shipped to the south. You know, the people who did most of the work. Not that they had a choice about it.
On any number of levels, that may be the most repulsive thing I’ve ever heard of a Village pundit uttering – and that’s a really, really high bar.
Sadly, as Richard Cohen, David Broder, and so many before them have demonstrated, once you’re a made member of The Village absolutely nothing can get you fired, let alone end your career. Absolutely. Nothing.
The exception, of course, is that after 40 years of open racism plus creeping senility, Pat Buchanan managed to get himself booted from the “liberal” cable news channel. Rule, exception, proof.
The Republican Party gets – deservedly – a lot of blame for the sorry state of politics in this country. But clowns like these are arguably just as responsible, and on some levels even more repulsive.
High-paid teevee fools like Brooksie/Todd can really commit some serious pundit malpractice with the “regions” theory of American settlement…yep, those puritan “collectivists”—that explains everything!
Huh. I thought Brooks died a while ago.
It was only brain death, which (fortunately for him) did not affect his work…