The Triumphant Return of The Mustache of Understanding

Lance Mannion welcomes us back to the show that never ends:

Thomas Friedman in Tomorrowland

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Friedman’s complaint is that none of the people running for President “surprises” him “with any daring.”

I guess what he means is that none of them are offering what he would think of as big, bold, new ideas that will carry this great nation into the future. He wants someone capable of the kind of big, bold thinking that results from having no particular principles except for a vague and bloodless faith that people like Thomas Friedman know what's best for the country and if those Friedman-esque people have an idea it must be a good one.

Democrats are now polarizing toward the populist left. Since the Republicans have already purged their moderates, this trend does not bode well for the country. It means that the hybrid/centrist blends that on many issues can create the most resilient solutions are “off the table.

What is he talking about? When did that ever happen?

What great thing in this country's history, what "resilient solution", from the Revolution through abolition through women winning the right to vote through the New Deal through the Civil Rights movement and through on up to the brink of marriage equality, wasn't accomplished by a group of liberal extremists dragging people from the center to join them in opposing the entrenched conservative interests of the day?

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How old am I?

So old that I remember way back when this column was called “Party No. 3”.

And it was written by a guy named David Fucking Brooks.

From me, in 2006:

Wretched Mole Rat

Suffocates on own dick.

Film at 11:00

If Bobo is going to do nothing but recycle his old beerfarts over and over again into new column inches, then I may resort to rerunning old refutations and save my secret, new adjectives for new arguments. Because in his Thursday column, Bobo just retreads the tired, discredited "Tyranny of False Bisection" dodge and runs it around the block.

Again.

You know the joke (driftglass tm):

So Dick Cheney is found, naked, on the White House lawn tossing burning kittens at homeless veterans and hitting babies with a ball-peen hammer.

What are the first three words out of David Brooks’ mouth?

“But the Democrats!”

Here’s a snip from his column entitled “Party No. 3”, mercifully walled up like Fortunato behind the subscription-only fortification of the NYT:

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There are two major parties on the ballot, but there are three major parties in America. There is the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the McCain-Lieberman Party.

All were on display Tuesday night.

The Democratic Party was represented by its rising force — Ned Lamont on a victory platform with the net roots exulting before him and Al Sharpton smiling just behind.

The Republican Party was represented by its collapsing old guard — scandal-tainted Tom DeLay trying to get his name removed from the November ballot. And the McCain-Lieberman Party was represented by Joe Lieberman himself, giving a concession speech that explained why polarized primary voters shouldn’t be allowed to define the choices in American politics.

The McCain-Lieberman Party begins with a rejection of the Sunni-Shiite style of politics itself. It rejects those whose emotional attachment to their party is so all-consuming it becomes a form of tribalism, and who believe the only way to get American voters to respond is through aggression and stridency.

The flamers in the established parties tell themselves that their enemies are so vicious they have to be vicious too. They rationalize their behavior by insisting that circumstances have forced them to shelve their integrity for the good of the country. They imagine that once they have achieved victory through pulverizing rhetoric they will return to the moderate and nuanced sensibilities they think they still possess.

But the experience of DeLay and the net-root DeLays in the Democratic Party amply demonstrates that means determine ends. Hyper-partisans may have started with subtle beliefs, but their beliefs led them to partisanship and their partisanship led to malice and malice made them extremist, and pretty soon they were no longer the same people.

The McCain-Lieberman Party counters with constant reminders that country comes before party, that in politics a little passion energizes but unmarshaled passion corrupts, and that more people want to vote for civility than for venom.

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The “net roots” was the Democratic House Majority Leader? Man, I must’ve slept right through that.

And casting Al Sharpton as the scary Black pivot on which the entire Democratic party turns, while amusing, is gonna come as one helluva shock to one Senator Barack Obama.

So where was the acid-belching Democratic equivalent of Rush Limbaugh in 1985?

1986?

1987?

1988?

1989?

1990?

1991?

1992?

1993?

1994?

1995?

1996?

Where was mile-high, bandwidth-bestriding Thug Left that matched the Hate Radio of the Thug Right for the last twenty years?

Where is the Democratic Gingrich who runs a Democratic GOPAC that methodically and deliberately instructs his entire Party to scream “Traitor!” at the opposition at every press opportunity as routine, tactical matter?

Where are the army of Special Prosecutors sifting through every Kleenex George Bush ever used? Over a bad land deal? And a blowjob?

When is the impeachment hearing of George Bush scheduled to begin?

Where is the Democratic Southern Strategy that nurtures and harvests racists for votes?

Name me the Commies in the Democratic Party? Anywhere? Where are the Bolsheviks that hold elected office? How many Socialists in Congress? How many raging, Green Party Governors? How many hard-line Naderite federal judges?

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Sigh