Sunday, April 05, 2009

Punish The Monkey


And let the organ grinder go.

In his Friday column about “What happened to the global economy?”, David Fucking Brooks spends 800 words trying to parse out whether the collapse of the world financial markets was caused by greedy fuckers who got stupid or stupid fuckers who got greedy.

Apparently, according to the gospel of David Fucking Brooks, the truth of the thing is a phenomenon so incredibly opaque and elusive that -- like the top quark or why Madonna remains even mildly popular -- it may ultimately be unknowable.

The behavioral super-villain of David Fucking Brooks’ "CSI: Wall Street" is a veritable Professor Moriarty: skulking around in the alleys behind the world's banking systems, hiding behind bibbly phrases like “[the] false lure of the Gaussian copula function”, kicking over whole economies, and then vanishing, leaving only the merest wisps of clues behind.

For his part, David Fucking Brooks stands foursquare in favor the stupidity theory over the greed theory. A daring move, certainly, but one which risks causing certain irresponsible imputers of unattractive motives to wonder aloud if his decision to blame Teh Stoopid instead of Teh Greedy might have anything to do with the fact that if it turned out the Great Republican Recession was caused by evil oligarchs fucking us all over because, well, they don’t give a shit whether any of the rest of us live or die, then that might sorta put a serious crimp in David Fucking Brooks’ sweet-sweet gig as the Chief Apologist for the Party Of Greedy Oligarchs.

Adoption of the greed theory would also inexorably point in the direction of Evil Regulation, which, according to David Fucking Brooks, would “just be trading the hubris of Wall Street for the hubris of Washington.” And we all remember how hubristic regulatory fiends held the economy’s head underwater until it drowned between those tragic, peak years of federal oversight between, say, 1936 and 1981.

Of course the most remarkable thing of all about this column is not the typical, clumsy, Brooksian faux intellectual argumentum ad verecundiam namedropping (“Benoit Mandelbrot and Nassim Taleb”), or the typical, clumsy, Brooksian juxtaposition of two completely false choices in order the manufacture the illusion of a complex dilemma where none exists.

No, the most remarkable thing about it what that big ol’ dog didn't do in the night:

Inspector Gregory: "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Sherlock Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

Inspector Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."

Sherlock Holmes: "That was the curious incident."


The most remarkable thing about it is that undisputed King Of Babbitt Crack-lapping Conservatism burns 800 words pretending to muse Very Seriously over the question of what in the hell went wrong with the American financial system starting in the 1980s and cannot bring his mouth to form these four little syllables:
Rea-gan-om-ics.

Instead, the whole monologue is presented as if this problem is happening on a distant, cloud-swaddled planet a thousand light years away; a place whose properties can only be vaguely inferred, whose deity isn't Conservatism's Greatest Hero and whose inhabitants don’t live two houses down from David Fucking Brooks.

Which is why he is not David Brooks, but will always be David Fucking Brooks.

12 comments:

Cirze said...

I am speechless in admiration of your eloquence.

Bravo!

This guy should be pulled from the stage with the same hook used on the rest of the ilk of DeLay, Gramm, Newt, Bush, Cheney . . . . Need I continue?

I'd also like to add Cokie F. Roberts to your exposé of the group of "reporters" who are merely inserted in programs to confuse the audience, who are looking for information from people purveying serious content, with prattle and cant as her calling card.

See Sunday's with George as a perfect example of this MSM obfuscation tool.

Again, you rule.

The Minstrel Boy said...

sheeeee-IT!

goddamn!

get off your ass and jam!



p-funk was the music in my head as i read this.

thank you drifty. not only for the taking down of that ferret faced motherfucker who peddles sophistry and calls it reason, but, for rescuing the music in my head this morning.

i'm currently pulling a musical director gig for a production of "godspell" and, needless to say, my head is starting to weary of having those cute jesus tunes in residence.

some of it is perfectly fine and appropriate, after all, the m.d. gig requires that i do a tape session every day of the last show. (or in the case of weekends last two shows)

i started to read this and poof! there was bootsie's bass line.

whew! thanks again.

Comrade PhysioProf said...

David Motherfucking Brooks!!

FTFY

StringonaStick said...

Thanks to you, Drifty, for many months now I can not hear or see the words "David Brooks" without my brain immediately turning it into "David Fucking Brooks". And for that, I thank you!

I am also assuming you always use that photo of him because of the pink shirt and hideous fuscia tie. Some fashion crimes should be constantly held up for ridicule.

Anonymous said...

Amen! (again)
Thanks! (again)
Please keep it up! (again)

Hard to be innovative when commenting about your posts. . .

Anonymous said...

David Fucking Brooks. Douche. (pronounced doo-shay)

His stupid wears spandex. Just in case stupid eats too much Thursday night.

A cunt with a windsor knot.

Phil said...

I swear to God, I have a Pavlovian reponse to pink ties when I come here now!

Pink ties= David Fucking Brooks Ass Beating.
I live for this shit.

By the way, did you happen to see the Broder Op Ed Today?

Oh, My.
Once again, the stench of the long dead, beautific Reagan, was unearthed to be held up as the most awesome fucking President ever, as a comparison to the manliness of Obama, I kid you not.
The never too far from the Republican instant jizz button of the historic union busting by Reagon of the air traffic controllers gave the moldy old mother fucker a stiffy in public.
That guy needs to be put out to pasture for a couple of days and then the rendering service needs to be called.

Anonymous said...

keyser soze = D.Brooks? You always have to keep an eye on the little weasels, I guess.

nunya said...

Fabulous, thank you :)

Tengrain said...

Drifty -

When I stopped my subscription to the NYTimes after the unfortunate rimjob that Pinch/Punch gave to Billy the K, I just don't think about going to see what Jebus' younger brother has to say.

Thanks for reading David Fucking Brooks so I don't have to. I owe you one, bro.

Regards,

Tengrain

The Littlest Gator said...

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I hate David effin Brooks more than just about any of the pack. what a great review of his drool-and-dribble diatribe on another of the many things he doesn't know jack shit about.

Imaginista said...

I love the smell of an open can of DFB whoop-ass in the morning.