David Brooks Is Off Today

Actually, no he's not.

But with the Right closing its historic deal to pick the last slivers of tender meat off the bones of the American economy on behalf of its billionaire paymasters, Bobo has chosen to use his column today as an 800-word stay-cation:

Every day, a few of their studies are bundled and distributed via e-mail by Kevin Lewis, who covers the social sciences for The Boston Globe and National Affairs. And every day, I file away these studies because I find them bizarrely interesting.

In this column, I’m going to try to summarize as many of these studies as space allows.

It would appear that following his Party's latest abdication of any sense of national responsibility, America's Greatest Conservative Public Intellectual has chosen to use the commanding heights of his inexplicably-permanent presence on the New York Times editorial page to crank out a column that is one step above naming his farts and then describing them using wine-speak.

"Puce, Cheneyesque tones upon entry, legging it over to a deep umber as it leaves with notes of hairplug, chili and wet dog, I call this one 'Slappy'"

So, I have decided to hop in the Wayback machine, go back nearly six years and 3,000 posts to pluck my very first David Brooks column from its dust nook.

Note how very little has changed in that time:

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David Brooks from the 04.09.05 NYT in which BoBo looks incrementally past his grotty navel and notices he has a couple of stinky little feet at the end of his legs. Article has been trimmed a bit, and helpful translations have been added for You The Customer.

The Republican Party is running into a problem: the conservatism of the American people. Over the past decade, the Republicans have set themselves up as the transformational party...

[But the American people] have a taste for order and a distrust of those who want too much change on too many fronts too quickly...

Translation: They are scared shitless that the Crazier’n a Shithouse Rat Theocrats that the Evil Liberals have always warned them about might actuall exist and have the keys to the car. Oh and all the Mapquest Route Planners they left behind as clues have a place called “Armageddonville” circled in big, red Crayon.

It's become increasingly clear that the Republicans are bumping into some limits...

Translation: limits like...gravity, evolution, arithmetic, international law, economics. Why does reality hate Republicans?

Being conservative, most Americans believe that decisions should be made at the local level, where people understand the texture of the case. Even many evangelicals, who otherwise embrace the culture of life, grow queasy when politicians in Washington start imposing solutions from afar, based on abstract principles rather than concrete particulars.

Translation: Even in the middle of my faux critique of my own Overlords ...must...regurgitate...”culture of life” meme...every...six...minutes. Hope no one notices what a trained seal I have become.

...Then there is Social Security reform. Republicans set forth with a plan to give people some control over their own retirement accounts. Here, too, Republicans have been surprised by the tepid public support. Americans understand that there is a big problem, but right now most oppose personal accounts invested in the markets. According to a Wall Street Journal poll this week, a third of Republicans currently oppose them.

Translation: We were all shocked when the public didn’t think letting Thurston Howell’s idiot son bulldoze Mom’s retirement money onto the craps table was a spiffy notion. We were stunned when our Soviet Style “spontaneous” crowds of carefully screened zombies came across like a Pravda Puppet Show.

And when a something vaguely resembling the seventh-generation photocopy of an actual “question” made it past the filters, and Bush, opens his mouth, the public is once again reminded that they narrowly re-elected a man who is quite possibly the stupidest human being to ever hold elected office in the United States. When he stands next to a filing cabinet he makes the furniture look positively clever and raconteurish.

We are equally stunned that when seniors didn’t respond to our idiotic plan to economically bugger them, that calling them Troop Hating Fags did not win them over.

...
Then there is the Tom DeLay situation. Conversations with House Republicans in the past week leave me with one clear impression: If DeLay falls, it will not be because he took questionable trips or put family members on the payroll. It will be because he is anxiety-producing and may become a political liability...

Translation: DeLay has been a foaming-at-the mouth, rabid Evangelical freak show for about 15 years now. For naked political advantage, he has been sloppily knobbing the militia movement, cross-burners, clinic bombers, queer-bashers and basically anything he can fish out of the absolute dregs of the DNA barrel around who’s fetid cock he could fit his mouth. Now that you’ve noticed him in all his Gorgon Awfulness and we in the Neutered and Rightwing Media can’t keep pimping the story that he’s a “colorful kook." Now we have to be Shocked! Shocked! at his bestial excesses.

House Republicans like what DeLay has done, and few have any personal animus toward him, but his aggressiveness makes them - and his own constituents - nervous. Only 39 percent of DeLay's Texas constituents said they would stick with him if he were up for re-election today, a Houston Chronicle survey found.

Translation: DeLay has their nuts in his medicine bag and they don’t fucking dare say a word against him. DeLay makes a viper like Gingrich look like a charming Southern Gentleman, that’s how de-ranged he is. Don’t fuck with The Hammer, dude. My cousin said she had a friend who saw him beat a homeless guy to death with a congressional staffer. Then he ate him, whole, like an Anaconda eating a rabbit. He’s Kaiser Fucking Sose, man. Prince of Darkness. On the plus side, two-out-of-every-five ambulatory humans in Sugarland, TX would still support him even now that he has been outed as the Satan’s Wingman. Gotta love Texas: It’s like a whole other Special Olympics Purgatory.

This does not mean good news for Democrats. That party is at risk of going into a death spiral. The Democrats lost white working-class voters by 23 percentage points in the last election, and now the party is being led by people who are guaranteed to alienate those voters even more: the highly educated and secular university-town elites who follow Howard Dean and believe Bush hatred and stridency are the outward signs of righteousness.

Translation: America has had a chance to test drive Irresponsible Cowardly Stupid for a few years now and they luvs it! Even though they will climb over corpses to send their kids to college, Americans hate “elites.” Jeez, just saying that word creeps me out. ElitesElitesElites!

Stop it dude: you’re scaring the Fundies. Nothing more frightening than a citizen with a book. And positively terror-ific if they went to college...except Bob Jones...who Rock! Go Fighting Antimiscegenists!

...
Nor does it mean that Republicans should abandon their ideas, but it may be time to think about methods.

Translation: Shit, they’re on to us! Quick, change clothes.

...
Public opinion is not always right, but it is always worth respecting.

Translation: Ain’t no justice like Sweet Mob Justice.

Ah BoBo. Go to bed, little man, and don’t be afraid. I’m sure the Shining Path Evangelicals you stooge for won’t kill you ‘til last.

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Begins with flaccid, hasbeenish tones, dies on your tongue and slides down your throat to give you sourbelly all day long, I call this one 'Bobo'.