Saturday, November 09, 2013

Backstage At The Puppet Theater



JUDY WOODRUFF: But [Chris Christie is] clearly somebody everybody is looking at for 2016 already, right?

DAVID BROOKS: Right, and in part because this coming presidential -- the last Republican primary process which we were stuck with was miserable. It was horrible. There were no debates. It was Looney Tunes.  And this one is actually a big debate.

MARK SHIELDS: You didn't say that at the time.

DAVID BROOKS: I didn't -- I felt it. I felt it in my heart.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID BROOKS: Some -- you remember those debates? They were Looney Tunes.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID BROOKS: The -- but now you have got like a real argument between at least two very substantive people.

You have got Christie on one side. You have got probably Rand Paul or Ted Cruz on the other. And so we will figure out where the party is going to stand on a whole bunch of issues. And so this is going to be a great campaign.
...
Insert your own joke about Mr. Brooks flagging "Rand Paul or Ted Cruz" being "substantive people."

What caught my attention was Mr. Brooks casual, joking admission that he failed at the basic job of a reporting -- in this case, failing to honestly report what he knew to be true about the Republican primaries at the time they were happening.

Of course he "didn't say it at the time".

He never says it -- whatever "it" happens to be -- at the time.

As I explained several years ago, David Brooks' makes a phenomenal living fetishizing a psychological disorder called "Asymmetriphobia" -- an obsessive fear of asymmetrical things -- as if it were a virtue:




Of course, most of our Elite Media is equally addicted to the same, lazy lie -- reducing every, single, fucking issue to blah blah blah  "both sides this" and yadda yadda "both sides that" and how somehow "the 60s" are at least partially to blame.   

Where Mr. Brooks really stands out is in the sheer persistence of his well-mannered flogging of the "Both Sider" lie long past its sell-by date: he almost never breaks message discipline and will continue relentlessly catapulting the Centrist propaganda until whatever-today's-issue-might-be is safely in the rear-view mirror and (thanks to the tacit agreement among his colleagues that none of them will ever point out up how horribly wrong their good friend David Brooks has always been about everything) all anyone (but as few dirty hippies) remembers is the vague residue of David Brooks' genteel tone.

But every now and then the paid staff who stage our media puppet theater crack a little wise over what a hilarious act it all is.

And at that moment you can catch a glimpse of how routine the lies have become, and how little the puppeteers care.  

11 comments:

steeve said...

You should bold the "laughter" after the admission too. That was nauseating.

"we will figure out where the party is going to stand on a whole bunch of issues"

Yeah, that'll be interesting. Will the party be for tax cuts for the rich or tax cuts for the rich? Will it want to privatize everything or privatize everything? Will it freeze the minimum wage or freeze the minimum wage?

I still haven't seen a substantive policy dispute between this "civil war" I keep being told the republicans are waging.

dinthebeast said...

He called them substantive, but neglected to name the substance.
My guess is that it emanated from the north end of some south-bound critter or other.

-Doug in Oakland

wagonjak said...

I think that you often don't have the long threads of comments after your blogs that other sites like C&L and FDL have is THAT YOU SO PERFECTLY FUCKING NAIL your subject to the wall that's there's little else to add to it.
Yes, all of us dirty hippies have seen all this horror happening for 4 decades, but we can't articulate what we've seen with the sheer perfection and bravado (and razor's edge) that you do. You ARE a fucking genius.

marindenver said...

What wagonjak said. And I agree with steeve about the laughter being nauseous. They are fucking admitting that to them it's all a big game. I'd say the lot of them should be fired except there're even worse suck-ups in the wings waiting to take over.

marindenver said...

I'm in Seoul at the moment (helping my son and his family move back to Denver - hooray!) and the little blurb about the comment being visible after approval jumped up in Korean. Love it! (At least I hope that's what it said. ;-) )

Anonymous said...

My question would have been, what's going on right now that you know in your heart is true, but won't say.
I totally agree with the comment above. You nail it everytime.

Kathleen said...

What steeve and wagonjak said.

caliban said...

Substance doesn't begin to describe Christie's corpulence. So it's the obese guy and Aqua Buddha. Whooeeee! That's an impressive candidate pool. And there is no statute of limitations on kidnapping.

Monster from the Id said...

The Dinocrats will be compelled to campaign in 2014 with the fragrant ex-albatross of Obamacare (nee Romneycare) around their necks.

The Reptilians will be compelled to campaign in 2014 with the fragrant ex-albatross of the Tea Birch Society around their necks.

I expect the results will depend mainly on which ex-albatross (as in ex-parrot) exudes a greater and fouler fragrance by November 2014.

Selah.

Gene Oberto said...

You've done many but the self decapitation illustration is up there with your best.

drbopperthp said...

wagonjak: "You ARE a fucking genius."

And always has been. - Da Doctah