Andrea Mitchell's Swear Pillow

As you know, Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times has a new book he wants you to buy.  I believe it is called "The Second Mounting" and may or may not have something to do with how he achieved spiritual excellence by jettisoning his first wife and marrying his much younger research assistant.  I don't know.  I haven't read it and have no plans to read it in the immediate future.

Anyway, because Mr. Brooks is Mr. David Brooks, every major media outlet in America is contractually obligated to give him at least five minutes to recite his sales pitch.

Sunday, Chuck Todd had the duty.

Tuesday, CBS This Mourning drew the short straw.

And yesterday, it was Andrea Mitchell's turn to walk that particular diarrhetic dog.

I watched it.  You can watch it too, if you're so inclined.  However I watched it while wearing my They Live glasses --

-- so the following is not a transcription of what they said, but a transcription of what I heard.

Ahem.

Andrea Mitchell:  Welcome David Brooks.

David Brooks:  Namaste, Andrea.

Andrea Mitchell:  What does that mean, David?

David Brooks:  I have no idea, Andrea.

Andrea Mitchell:  So David, how does Donald Trump being a  lying, racist, halfwit traitor fit with the mawkish self-help book you are here to sell?

David Brooks:  Well, think about Pete Buttigieg who I met briefly once several months ago. He seemed so humble and deferential and never once had the bad taste to bring up me dumping my wife for my much younger research assistant and then going out and peddling a book on moral virtue and spiritual betterment.  And then you look at Donald Trump, who is greedy and smelly.  So, y'know, Two Mountains.

Andrea Mitchell:  David, that's probably the worst transition from "news" to "Buy my book!" that I've seen since Ben Shapiro was on here trying to pitch "Evil in America" as a raw diet cookbook.  So let's try this again.  It's not just this president, is it David?   Some would say it's the whole fucking culture. It's our politics.  It's on our phones!  It's stuck to the bottom of my chair!  Oh my God, David!   It's eating me alive from within!  It's everywhere!   Unclean!  Unclean!

David Brooks:  Uh, yes, Andrea.  What I meant to say is that Donald Trump is a smelly bigot and the Republican party is a mob of inbred carnies because we have a crisis of connection!  I myself used to work very hard, but now I see that was a terrible mistake.  Jobs are meaningless and we should do away with them.  Also opioids are terrrible!  And narcissism.  And tribalism -- can't forget use that word.  And the rock and roll.  I will now read you many random statistics.

Andrea Mitchell looks at her watch.  Time slows to nothing.  God damn it, Einstein was right again.

David Brooks:  We need a moral cleansing.  In fact, there's this place called "Get Your Whig On" my new wife took me for my birthday where they do a Chateau Lafite-Rothschild wine enema while a hot lady dressed as Edmund Burke slowly reads Reinhold Niebuhr to you.  It is ... sublime.

Andrea Mitchell:  Sweet Jesus, David.  You are America, aren't you.

David Brooks (modestly): Yes.   I've had a little more privilege than some people, but essentially I am literally America itself made flesh and bone and sinew.  And I can tell you that, in private, all my Republican friends feel pretty bad that, in public, they strut around behind Donald Trump with his name carved into their foreheads, drinking blood and demanding human sacrifices.  It really bothers them!

Andrea Mitchell:  I know many of the same people!  They still come to our orgies, but now they just sit on the futon and cry and drink grain alcohol until they pass out.  And you have not lived, David -- I mean truly lived -- until you've seen Chuck Grassley, weeping, face-down, blackout drunk in a puddle of his own sick.

David Brooks: Well as you know, many Republicans come to me for counsel because I am so very wise and spiritually advanced despite being almost completely wrong about everything since forever.

Andrea Mitchell:  I came to you myself, back when my husband Alan Greenspan had that unfortunate bout of Tourette's and shoplifting.

David Brooks: I remember it well.  We negotiated that Grand Bargain with the store owner.

Andrea Mitchell:  Yes, thanks to you, not only did Alan get to keep everything he stole and not only did the store fire several part-time janitors and stock boys, we also found out that Alan didn't have  Tourette's at all.,  He just likes swearing at the poors!

They share a laugh.

Andrea Mitchell:  And he's very, very old, so you can't tell him anything.  But now he swears into the tasteful Swear Pillow that Peggy Noonan needle-pointed for him.

David Brooks:  Another crisis of connection solved the David Brooks way!

They share another laugh.

David Brooks: And that's how I want people to see my book.  As a boutique, hand-stitched pillow that rich, hollow, midlife-crisis wracked elites can scream into.

Andrea Mitchell: Thank you, David.  Our contractually-obligated five minutes has now expired.

David Brooks:  NPR here I come!

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