What the Homeless Were Doing in his Pajamas

he did not know.

History will quickly bag and bury today's New York Times column by Our Mr. Brooks like it has buried so many others: in a ratty plot on unhallowed ground between the emails one is sometimes forwarded by elderly shut-ins and the sort of "Life in These United States" filler that "Reader's Digest" used to buy from their slush pile for $2.00 a throw.

Because in the same way some people should be legally estopped from singing, or prevented (by force if necessary) from dancing, Our Mr. Brooks should never, ever try to be funny. That said, piquant and unintentional hilarity was added to Mr. Brooks' signature cultural obliviousness and smirking snobbery today by the juxtaposition of the subject (the robotic Mr. Brooks' attempting to synthesize what we humans call "humor" by making with the "ha-ha" over the crippling social and economic inequalities that are ravaging our country) and the fact that the author is a thin-skinned, overpaid, humor-deficient defender of the plutocracy with a stick up his ass big enough to be used in a caber toss.

So while both George Wallace's guest column -- "On the Amusing Differences Between the Quadroon and the Octoroon amongst the Lower Orders" -- in the June, 1962 issue of "Modern Confederate Bride Magazine" and Prescott Bush's 1939 essay -- "Ten Things to Love about German National Socialism" -- were both arguably more shudderingly tone-deaf than Mr. Brooks' efforts today, had Our Mr. Brooks written his column in a powdered wig while lobbing magnums of champagne off his balcony at the homeless in his pajamas, he might have given the old boys a run for their money.

In much the same way the Bill First once remote-diagnosed Teri Schiavo as being a glass of OJ and a good nap away from running the New York marathon


Longtime readers know that Mr. Brooks' Fake Centrism fetish was once diagnosed by some long-forgotten wag as a form of political "Asymmetriphobia": a horror of asymmetrical things.

However at this point, Mr. Brooks' obsession with going out of his way to find occasions to sniff at the very real and dangerous problems we face and mock the very real and thoughtful people who are grappling with them has gotten to the point where one must ask if Mr. Brooks does not also suffer from some kind of Oligarch-Coprolalia: the "involuntary utterance of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks" when confronted with the brutal and tragic side-effects of the class system which Our Mr. Brooks games so adroitly.

But of course, in the end is does not matter whether Mr. Brooks writes such tripe because he actually believes it, or due to some neurological disorder that causes him to use his position at the pinnacle of America's Newspaper of Record to take giant shits on those who are poorer, weaker and less fortunate that he is. Because, in the end, Mr. Brooks does not get paid to write such tripe for you and me at all.

He gets paid to write such tripe for the comfort and amusement of the richest people in the history of the world.

And as long as he keeps his tongue firmly and eagerly planted in the Galt's Gulch of his paymasters, whether Our Mr. Brooks is mentally unstable or merely a deeply committed Conservative asshole, he will never miss a meal.