Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Stupid Shit Andrew Sullivan Says, Ctd.



"I am not a toady to power; in this village, I am more of a feral creature. I have excoriated presidents and hailed them at times."

-- Andrew Sullivan, 05/15/12
The hilarious part is that he appears to actually believes this.

On an entirely different but completely related topic, the fearlessly non-toadying David Brooks has written a wildly stupid column about that strange and beautiful world in which he lives where Republicans as we know them do not exist at all.

Ezra Klein has already put the column up on blocks and stripped away all the, uh, anti-factual anomalies upon which Mr. Brooks' arguments all rest.


“If you look at the fundamentals,” writes David Brooks, “the president should be getting crushed right now.” The rest of the column is an attempt to explain why President Obama isn’t getting crushed right now. Brooks settles on Obama’s “version of manliness that is postboomer in policy but preboomer in manners and reticence.” But the premise of the column is wrong: If you look at the fundamentals right now, the president should not be getting crushed. In fact, he should be slightly ahead, which is pretty much where he is in most polls.


Brooks never actually defines what he means by “the fundamentals.” The evidence he provides in his column is mostly an assortment of recent poll results related to how voters feel about the economy, Obama’s plan for the economy, and Obama’s view of the role of government.


It’s not clear how Brooks is deciding which poll results are worth including and which are not. For instance, a new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that “though an overwhelming 71% rate economic conditions as poor, a 58% majority predict they will be good a year from now.” That poll — and others like it — don’t make it into the article.
...
Perhaps I will add my own $.02 later.  Perhaps not.  But I am curious about one thing

At some level I believe a smart guy like Ezra Klein understands that it does not matter in the slightest how often or nakedly people like Our Mr. Brooks gets caught lying.

I wonder if this frustrates him and I wonder if Ezra will ever bust loose and write a column about how such people maintain their positions even after they are exposed over and over again as arrant frauds?

Probably not.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I am more of a feral creature"

Oh... Sweet Gods and Goddesses.... Now I have the image of Andrew Sullivan pretending he's a feral cat. I kept trying to read the article, but kept seeing Sullivan hissing at me and swiping his "paws" at me, then saying some blithering sh*t about Thatcher and Reagan, like some cheap knock-off political version of "Cats".

Oh, Cardea, now he's singing....

Where's my bourbon.....

Mike.K.

Jado said...

How long had Ezra been doing this gig? If he isn't brand new (and I doubt he is if I have heard of him), he already KNOWS that there are some who have positions of authority or sinecure without merit. I doubt he will bother to wonder about it, at least in print.

But boy, wouldn't it be nice to see someone even peripherally related to the Village ask the embarrassing questions...

Sophist said...

Brooks never actually defines what he means by “the fundamentals.”

Obama is ostensibly a liberal, and everyone knows this is a Center Right Country®, so obviously the poll results are puzzling.

Phil Perspective said...

I wonder if this frustrates him and I wonder if Ezra will ever bust loose and write a column about how such people maintain their positions even after they are exposed over and over again as arrant frauds?

Probably not.




Why would he? Ezra wants to be the next David Broder(or David Gregory), but with the TV hosting gig under his belt.