Two hacks, no waiting.
To watch these two soft, wealthy, privileged cranks cheerfully sniffing each other's farts you would never guess that the United State has just limped away from the worst foreign policy debacle in American history, and that these men were two of that disaster's most enthusiastic cheerleaders.
UPDATED
The first, inevitable, David Brooks "Both Sides" razor in the apple is at around the 27:30 (emphasis added):
As we think about foreign affairs and maybe domestic policy too, we're trying to gauge how utopian, how aggressive, how assertive we could be. And I say we've screwed it up in two directions. George W. Bush was way too utopian aggresive. I think Barack Obama is way too minimalistic.
And striking that balance -- I don't know if you'd agree -- is still hanging out there."We" screwed up?
Really?
But of course it has to be "we" doesn't it. Barack Obama somehow has to be just as wrong as George W. Bush, or else someone might someday start asking how it is that Bush War cheerleadering cowards like David Brooks -- who have been so uniquely and horribly wrong about everything for so damn long -- have never been held to account for the uniquely horrible shit they have said and done.
And then, less than two minutes later, David Brooks shared his advice for non-David Brooks life forms on how to live virtuously:
If you're working on your resume, you want to invest in your strengths. If you're really good at math, work hard in math.Oh! Oh! Call on me! Puhleeeeeeeeze call on me!
If you're looking at your own internal life it seem to me the strategy is entirely opposite. You want to tackle your weaknesses. And you want to focus...what are the sins I commit? What are my characteristic sins?
Am I a pleaser? Am I a shallow. Am I a coward?
But they never did.
And they never will.
Because the illusion of Authority of Very Serious People is only maintained by making very, very sure that no one who would dare ask these discredited Neocon idiots a single, substantive question would be allowed anywhere near their mutual masturbation society.
13 comments:
I would have preferred a dose of dysentery. This is just too painful. Quelle horreur indeed.
"...(neocon) mutual masturbation society."
OK, that image is going to need some photon-torpedo-strength brain bleach. Eeeeuwwwww... :p
Going to take your word for it. If I click on the play icon, I'm gonna wanna climb a tower at the University of Texas--even though I don't own a firearm or have a brain tumor. Forget it. Your post is good enough for me.
I liked Friedman's "No one ever washed a rented country." Say what???
What sort of dressing would you like with that word salad, Mr. Friedman?
As long as we're tangentially discussing Iraq, I may as well congratulate Driftglass for making an accurate prediction while being entirely facetious.
I guess he believes I would want his advice on how to live because it might allow me to become more like him...
I'm pretty sure I'd rather be eaten by rats.
-Doug in Oakland
Here's some minimalism for 2016:
Bush got us into Iraq
Obama got us out of Iraq
The neocons can keep bringing this up. That's great! Keep their foreign policy FRESH in our minds but keep it simple (right butthole Brooks?) A war of choice for what again?
What was it WE wanted to accomplish?
Getting OUT of the debacle and staying OUT.
Mission accomplished!
I think it's telling that these two hacks are still "stars" on the NYT's editorial page (despite being hopelessly wrong about Iraq, among many other things) while two others who were right about Iraq and are truly progressive, i.e. Bob Herbert and Frank Rich, are long gone.
To me this says plenty about Pinch Sulzberger's disastrous mismanagement of the Times franchise, and why it's a mistake to think of the NYT as a "liberal" paper any more. It's nit as bad as the WaPo, but close.
As close to the perfect example of the self-licking ice cream cone as can be found in nature.
Frank--
No so sure there is anything whatsoever that is 'natural' about our man Brooks.
As for all Mistah Friedman's Units...Why, they are nothing more more than 10 million dune buggy natural disasters comin' down the mountain over and over and over (and over) again.
.
I just want to say that when I read this piece out loud, I added the obligatory "fucking" between every adjacent "David" and "Brooks". I do this in readings of every DG piece that mentions the name of David Fucking Brooks, and I intend to keep doing so as long as DG's fingers and my vocal folds still work.
Monster from the Id:
I think Friedman is a Thousand Island dressing guy.
--Nonny Mouse
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