Especially if the Mission is FUBAR

At this point it goes almost without saying that Our Mr. Brooks' latest column amounts to yet another act of indecent public exposure by a pathologically dishonest man: another bag of flaming offal dropped with a smirk into the American political conversation from Mr. Brooks' well-protected sinecure high atop the ramparts of America's Newspaper of Record.

Like some ancient, malfunctioning robot fry cook which can no longer do anything but mindlessly prepare an inedible slurry of crap and gravel over and over again, Mr. Brooks' column is nothing more that another slab of his stale, standard-issue "Obama Should Capitulate More!" bilge with a steaming dollop of exactly the same obsessive anti-Occupy hippie punching and deliberately false conflation that has been rotting in Mr. Brooks New York Times display window for the last two months (and which has already been roundly mocked and eviscerated) on top.

All of which is, of course, bulwarked by the same cherry-picked results from polls which, if read fairly and in their totality, blow right up in Mr. Brooks' face and make him out to be either brain-damaged or just too fucking lazy to be bothered to dissemble as craftily as he used to back when he was lying about Iraq for the "Weekly Standard".

For example, here is Our Mr. Brooks citing "a Congressional Connections poll" to undergird his major point that "the American people" hate gummint and redistribution and, basically, everything else that makes Mr. Brooks pee his bed in terror. And that given these "facts", if President Obama wants to be re-elected he needs to begin sucking John Boehner's dick much harder, because anything less than groveling capitulation would be, in Bobo's words, "suicide":

According to a Congressional Connections poll, 55 percent of adults said they believed government regulation has been a “major factor” in the current economic slowdown.

And while that snippet of context-free data may be true, let us read on and see what the rest of that same poll -- the part the Our Mr. Brooks did not think you would be interested in -- looks like (from "The Atlantic" with emphasis added):

A new survey shows that Americans overwhelmingly support the self-styled Occupy Wall Street protests that not only have disrupted life in Lower Manhattan but also in Washington and cities and towns across the U.S. and in other nations. Some 59 percent of adults either completely agree or mostly agree with the protesters, while 31 percent mostly disagree or completely disagree; 10 percent of those surveyed didn't know or refused to answer.

What's more, many people are paying attention to the rallies. Almost two-thirds of respondents--65 percent--said they've heard "a lot" or "some" about the rallies, while 35 percent have said they've heard or seen "not too much" or "nothing at all" about the demonstrations.

The results appear in the latest edition of the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll.

When it comes to the question of how to pay for the Democratic jobs bill, most respondents were more than willing to place a special burden on the wealthy. Those surveyed were asked about a possible 5 percent surtax on those earning more than $1 million annually. The idea got considerable discussion earlier this fall when Congress considered President Obama's jobs package. Senate Republicans united against the bill and were joined by some Democrats, making it impossible for the measure to pass in a chamber where 60-vote majorities have become the norm because of filibustering. Still, a whopping 68 percent of adults support the Democratic surtax to pay for the cost of their jobs plan. Only 27 percent opposed the tax, while 5 percent didn't know. Men and women split almost identically on the issue, and black non-Hispanics were more supportive of the surtax than white non-Hispanics, with 84 percent supporting the idea.

Congressional Democrats and Obama can also take comfort from Americans' reaction to Senate Republicans blocking the nomination of Richard Cordray, the former Ohio attorney general, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency created in the wake of the financial crisis to look out for the interest of citizens. More than 40 Republicans--enough for a filibuster--have signed a letter vowing to block his appointment unless changes are made to the bureau that the GOP feels, in its current construct, is inhibiting financial institutions and lending that could spur the economy. A majority of those surveyed said that the Senate should confirm Cordray, and 39 percent said that it should not confirm him, while 15 percent either didn't know or refused to say.
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As I wrote back in 2005, when Our Mr. Brooks actually turned to Newt Fucking Gingrich for advice on the de-sleazification of the Republican party (No. Really. He really did that.) --

...
"First, they need to hold new leadership elections. As Newt Gingrich and Vin Weber told me yesterday, Tom DeLay needs to take care of his own legal problems and give up the dream of returning as majority leader."

-- Our Mr. Brooks' big, stupid lies mount up so damn high and reek so damn bad that there is just no sport in kicking them to atoms.

It's like hunting legless mouse babies.

In a teacup.

With an RPG.

Of course, not everyone sees it that way, which brings us 'round at last to the actual subject to today's sermonette: The gentle art of the Conservative suck-up.

It turns out that the Greatest Blogger in the World read the same execrable David Brooks column that I did.

And wrote about it, just as I -- a mere amateur scratching away off in the weeds at the edge of the blogosphere -- did.

And what did he make of it?

Well, it turns out that as much as he brands himself as an firebrand, when it comes to critiquing those in his professional circle, Mr. Sullivan quiuckl and predictable reverts to his default setting is "career-minded Conservative Tory".

Mr. Sullivan is a blogger who likes his targets -- Sarah Palin, Fox News, Limbaugh and the Limbaughettes, Imaginary Liberals -- outsized, cartoonishness and singularly lacking in any career-threatening blowback potential, but when the lies and depravity come from within Mr. Sullivan's small community of professional Conservative public intellectuals, his critiques tend to lose their edge entirely and start sounding like this:

Strategically, I think David is right that Obama's strengths do not lie in polarization. In my ideal world, the conciliatory, reasonable Obama would have reached some accords with a reasonable, chastened GOP and then fought an election on the future direction of the country. In the actual world, it seems clear...

The flaw in the case, however, seems to me that, after a while, Obama's conciliatory response to a bunch of ideological thugs - especially after they tried to send the country into default - made him look weak and impotent...

My own view is that the dichotomy David draws is too stark.
...

...I agree with David that the Grand Bargain is almost perfect Obama policy.

No, Mr. Brooks is neither drawing a dichotomy to starkly nor looking through a glass too darkly. He is l-y-i-n-g. He is adding one more mendacious tuckpoint the Great Big Lie on which he has based his entire career.

So why does Mr. Brooks' latest stinky addition to his massive, multi-decade-long record of lies, gross revisionism and generally being fucking wrong about everything rate this genteel reacharound with a tiny nip on the shoulder instead of, say, the kind of apocalyptic rebuke Mr. Sullivan once meted out to filthy, America-hating Liberals like me?

"The middle part of the country—the great red zone that voted for Bush—is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead—and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column."

Or even the kind of treatment which Mr. Sullivan himself has adamantly insisted is the basic fucking responsibility of "professionals" like Mr. Sullivan (From February, 2010)?

It is our job to look like assholes. We are professional assholes. We get paid to be rude. In order to expose the truth.

One reason this country is in a fiscal crisis is that journalists are not doing their job.

They chase ratings and politician "gets" more than they chase the truth. Why did it take the president to expose the Republicans' appalling fiscal record and lack of seriousness on spending rather than the press? Why are these politicians allowed to go on the air without being pressed relentlessly for their actual proposals."

And by relentlessly, I mean - if they fail to answer, or offer vague generalizations, ask again. And again. And again. And again. On air. Refuse to move on. Put them on the spot.
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Because David Brooks holds a +AAA status rating within the professional food chain up which Mr. Sullivan has been climbing lo these many years. And you don't get ahead in This Man's Army without knowing the the proper method of ball-washing the brass hats who outrank you.



In other words, there is a Club.

And as I wrote last year, this Club is full of Fake Centrists, Conservative Exiles and Beltway Villager douchbags who all help each other to...

...pretend that the Palinites, the Bushies, the Cheneyites and all the other slavering, wingnut zombie hordes from which Mr. Sullivan now cringes in horror are some random freaks of recent vintage

...
It's also a function of Fox News creating a national ideology through a national propaganda arm of the RNC. Well, they will reap what they sow. At least I hope so if real conservatism is going to one day find a comeback in American political discourse.
...

and not a generation of stunted, smug, pig-ignorant Conservatives who were deliberately spawned and suckled by the Republican Party in the radioactive wasteland created by Mr. Sullivan's beloved Reagan Revolution.

Because any Acknowledgment of Paternity which establishes Ronald Reagan's as the political father of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin would completely fuck up Mr. Sullivan's lucrative scam.
...

In this Club, Mr. Brooks ranks very high.

The ambitious Mr. Sullivan ranks well below him.

And you do not rank at all.