Monday, January 18, 2016

If The Answers Frighten You, David


Then you should cease asking scary questions.

The Democratic Debate was fine and worthy.

The Sunday Shows were horserace crap.

But on Friday, while the Village was laying on three shifts a day trying to manufacture a single, shapeless Both Siderist political garment ("People Are Angry!") that they can drape over Election 2016, down in the break room and unnoticed by everyone,  Mr. David Brooks left the most important question of all hanging in the air.

From the PBS News Hour (highlighted to catch your eye):
...
DAVID BROOKS: Well, Jeb Bush is part of a large group of people who are like the team at halftime who — like the Republican establishment, who feel like they’re down 50 points and they have decided they’re going to lose the game.

And that’s how the Republican establishment is right now. They don’t believe that Ted Cruz or Donald Trump can win. They think it could imperil their majorities in Congress, and yet they’re doing nothing about it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But what could they do?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I wish we had gray men in suits. We don’t have that...

...
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, go back to some kind of smoke-filled room? I mean, is that…

DAVID BROOKS: I’m pro-conspiracy right now.

(LAUGHTER 
MARK SHIELDS: You think it’s that critical?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, you know, I’m sort of — I have no confidence in my judgment. I shouldn’t say that on TV.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID BROOKS: Because…

JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark and I have confidence in your judgment.

DAVID BROOKS: Because I thought Trump would fade. And I still sort of think he will fade. But it’s not looking…

JUDY WOODRUFF: Sort of? You have backed…

DAVID BROOKS: I mean, it’s — right now, Trump and Cruz are both looking pretty good. And I don’t think either is electable, and neither do a lot of Republicans. And so the question is, why do they just sit there and do nothing?
...
And that is the question no one wants to answer. 

That is the question which our Beltway "journalists" want to lob into the fog of "somebody oughta". 
DAVID BROOKS: ...But, somehow, somebody has got to take some initiative if it’s not going to be Ted Cruz.
And that is the reason real Liberals are not allowed on teevee, because every Liberal knows exactly why nobody's doin' nuttin'.  

We know that the genteel, arteriosclerotic GOP gentry have kept their hands clean and their skirts starches by outsourcing the dirty work of Wingnut Hate Management to the likes of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and Frank Luntz for so long that they have forgotten how to throw their own punches.  In fact, David Brooks himself is a perfect example of this.  Mr. Brooks' success depends on making sure that he never appears in any venue where there is any chance that anyone will challenge him in any meaningful way.  Instead, PBS and NPR stages weekly Nerf-guns-at-100-paces pantomimes between Mr. Brooks and the likes of Mark Shields and E.J. Dionne where never is heard a discouraging word and no one ever loses an eye.  

Now try to imagine Mr. Brooks lasting five minute on stage with Donald Trump.  Or with me.  Or with you.  

We know that the reason real Liberals are not allowed on teevee is because we would answer actually answer this question.
driftglass: Why is the GOP establishment just sitting there, doing nothing?  Because they have gotten so dependent on winning elections by manipulating the basic bigot/paranoid/rage-drunk "Blame Liberals For Everything" operating system they created decades ago to, that they never anticipated that an even more agile and ruthless predator might hack their proprietary software and turn it against them.  Because neither the GOP establishment nor anyone at this table is going to risk ruining their careers by admitting that Liberals have been right about the Right all along.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, that's sort of the point, isn't it Driftglass? That, in order to get into the media or up in the tower to the gears and levers of power (a'la Brooks and fiends) you have to churn out pablum as exciting as cream of wheat consistenly enough for the gummers in the soft room. Mayhaps even with the secret dream of a Woodward and Bernstein moment whenever that may be - an existential crisis where the ball-gagged Mr. Smith is in the id's dark cellar and finally cut loose to wreak a righteous vengeance by filibuster.

The pen, or the sword kept from pad or battle does not sharper grow. The arm grows weak, axe on the mantle. The mind numbed and dulled by cushy sinecures, and pedicures and long (oh 800 words can be so long) paeans to navel lint and gazers thereof. And when the rabble rise in thrall to their distant masters, after long generations of cannibalism in the pits of mud and guts, crunching bone and spattered in blood the barbarians storm the gates and undermine the walls 'Our Hero' is unsuited.

Brooks doesn't know the new war. (He didn't even know there was a war) He do not know the stakes. Bishop to Queen's Rook Four doesn't matter anymore. It's just a parlor trick (useful for those who have parlors, I guess)

The barbarians are at the gates bringing a new feudal age with them. We don't need epistles from on high or Curtis LeMay demanding victory from above. We need the truth - to see and to hear them for what they are. We need to learn how to fight, again.

Thanks for helping teach!


trgahan said...

One big reason the GOP monster has turned is that every election the GOP won since 1980 Brooks et al. have told that army of paranoid rage filled bigots that they had just achieved "Final Victory." The useful idiots were verbally hand jobbed with "analysis" that Liberalism had been reject by the American people once and for all and every Right Wing boogeymen they made up would be vanquished within six months.

But reality delivered the complete opposite. Now the chumps, whose loyalty only made them poorer and less secure, want someone who'll deliver them vengeance, not governance.

New_Damage said...

"Well, I wish we had gray men in suits. We don’t have that..."

I'm assuming he meant to say 'men in grey suits.'

But they do have that. The thing is that the grey has been separated into vertical black and white stripes.

You, know, David… you have all the referees on your team.

Which works just fine for you when you throw a Hail Mary and Drew Pearson pushes off.

[This comment is not intended to disparage Drew Pearson. This comment is intended to disparage crooked referees Or crooked back/field judges. Or whomever it was that didn't make that call. Oh, and in addition, the five crooked Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States who appointed Commander Cuckoo-bananas President in the waning days of 2000.]

Eileen Gunn said...

Oh. "Men in grey suits." I thought he wanted to bring in a few Roswell Greys to save the GOP....

Unknown said...

"Now try to imagine Mr. Brooks lasting five minute on stage with Donald Trump. Or with me. Or with you."

Because we're right. We were always right. Everything I learned as an adolescent and teenager in the 70s was correct. The peace movement, the civil rights movement, the environmentalism, anti-corporatism, everything has been proven correct. And unfortunately it's been proven correct not because any of it has succeeded, but because it -hasn't- succeeded, and we've seen the nigh fatal effects of the opposite happening. And it's due in no small part to the effort[s] of the likes of David "fist-puppet to the corpo-lords" Brooks.

The hippies were right. Always have been. That's why the fist-puppets like to punch down at them. Our mistake was that we never punched back up hard enough. Give me five minutes on a stage with Mr. Brooks and he'll be brownstaining his car service all the way back to Connecticut.

bluicebank said...

Ha ha, Eileen.

Drift: "Now try to imagine Mr. Brooks lasting five minute on stage with Donald Trump. Or with me. Or with you."

Look, it tasks my imagination to envision going back in time in my imaginary spaceship. Let's not push it, OK?

Paul W said...

If David Brooks is serious about bringing moderate Republicans back to power, he needs to promote the Main Street Republicans more often. But he better hurry there's like 14 of them left.

http://republicanmainstreet.org/

Brad in Dallas said...

Could "grey men in suits" mean anything besides Pickett's Charge emerging from the powder smoke at a trot, bayonets fixed?

Anywho, we can gloat now that the Hamptons Whigs have been discomfited by the Trumplings. But doubt not that they're already brainstorming with some amazingly smart people how to bottle that lightning and package it for their benefit. New Fox Network reality shows are already on the story boards, Huck in the City, Christie Makeover, Pastor Cruz Knows Best, Top Chef Baton Rouge with Bobby J., Wisconsin Hunting Stories With Scotty. They'll have advertising budgets in the gazillions, funded by Kochs, and memorable tag lines like "he's deader than Saddan Hussein," "you cut that steak like a welfare program," "God forgives you, but I don't." These guys have billions of dollars, and Time On Their Hands.

Johnny Fever said...

Exactly right