Don't worry about David Brooks kids. Whatever you may hear over the next few days about double-dipping or featherbedding, he's gonna be fine.
Just fine.
For years he's had more side hustles than the Enterprise had Tribbles and it never bothered the House of Sulzberger one whit. There were the book deals and the small fortune in free promotion and free "book leave" time that his position at The New York Times afforded him.
And there were the speaking engagements.
And the Aspen Institute grift.
And that NPR gig.
And that PBS gig.
And that standing invitation to drop by Meet the Press whenever his public image needed to be fizzed up a bit.
And yet another writing gig at The Atlantic.
And for those of you with longer memories, you might remember back in 2011, when Mr. Brooks developed a sudden and passionate love of fracking, and he didn't care who knew it! Coincidentally, Mr. Brooks sudden and passionate love of fracking also just happened to correspond exactly with an ExxonMobile campaign to sell fracking to the public. From me, way back when:
...
Because unlike the Romepope, this pontiff [David Brooks] is not too stiff-necked and proud to leave his luxurious apartments at Castle Humblefino -- where the air is always fresh clean and the water runs clear and never catches fire -- and humbly wash the feet of any fracking industry executives who might happen to be on a pilgrimage to "K" Street to visit their money.Here, for example. is some his Holy Fracking Love from ExxonMobile Perspectives press-release in 2011:Brooks is an independent thinker and keen observer of the American political landscape, so his words carry weight. His column makes a valuable contribution to the important debate on U.S. shale gas development.Here is even more spontaneous and lucrative Holy Fracking Love from the Vicar of Both Sides on Meet the Press:So while the Romepope might be a swinging guy who would be perfect if you, say, ever want to rap or just get weird with somebody, he clearly does not understand the intricacies of money and mining. Because according the missives [David Brooks] Pope Bias receives from his dear friends in the bishoprics of Capitalism and Extractive Industries, everything on planet Earth is going great...
You see, as a Superior Being, Mr. Brooks has never felt overly burdened by the need to follow the same rules of conduct that he preaches so earnestly to us Lesser Beings.
For example, Mr. Brooks was not above writing repeatedly about the importance of marriage and why The Poors needed to get married and stay married to have Stable Neighborhoods...even as he was in the process of dumping his first wife to take up with his much younger research assistant.
Mr. Brooks also never felt the need to leaven his staunch supporter of Bibi Netanyahu and his Likud government by sharing with his audience that his son had chosen to cross the ocean to serve under Netanyahu in the Israeli Defense Force.
And when publicly confronted with how his pious sermonizing about the virtues of Reinhold Niebuhr radical conflicted with all the the bile and slander he had unloaded on the Left in the run-up to the Iraq War, Mr. Brooks simply lied about what he had written and blithely moved on.
So my reaction to the revelation that Mr. Brooks is now potentially embroiled in a scandal that may involve large sums of money, conflicts of interests and lack of transparency is, honestly, meh:
David Brooks’s Side Hustle Was Funded By Facebook And Jeff Bezos’s Father
The New York Times columnist has been using his perch to promote the Weave Project — without disclosing his potential conflicts of interest to his readers.
In the 16 years I have been on the David Brooks beat I have never seen any evidence that the Sulzberger family gives a damn about anything to do with David Brooks. Not his side hustles. Not his casual relationship with the truth when that truth is embarrassing. Not his long, long record of being horribly wrong about pretty much everything. And not his shitty writing.
As far as I can tell, Mr. Brooks is a beloved Sulzberger family house pet and there is almost nothing he could do to get himself sent upstate to play on a happy farm with other pundits.
On the other hand, if this turns out to be the final straw for the Sulzberger family, well, I'm sill not worried about Mr. Brooks. After all he still has his book deals.
And speaking engagements.
And Aspen Institute grift.
And NPR gig.
And PBS gig.
And that standing invitation to drop by Meet the Press whenever his public image needed to be fizzed up a bit.
And a writing gig at The Atlantic.
And, if all else fails, I'm sure Bill Kristol -- Brooks' old boss from his Weekly Standard days -- could throw him some Bulwark Online piecework to keep food on the table.
Also I hear that The Lincoln Project is suddenly in need of several new board members...
6 comments:
I expect you're wrong.
Brooks brooks. Brooks is cooked.
His muse Rash Lamebrain died.
His second wife Cuomo tried.
Zuckerberg bought the word Brooks lied.
Conservative chic is passe, over.
Liberals read better and sell well.
Daily newspaper saviors.
David Fcking Brooks
done his last crook.
His stupid problem is he sucks.
DFB
I agree DFB will be okay at the end of the day.
He still has his Mr. And Mrs. Potato heads and doesn't have to worry that he won't be able to tell the gender of Potatoes .
What America, The world awaits from DFB is his view on if Americans recieve pandemic aid will they become lazy and not work or were they lazy food for nothings to begin with.
I noticed when The GOP government gave $138 billion in military aid to Israel (of other people's money). They did not demand Israel cut their universal health care and shigt that money to their military spending.
When U.S. farmers lost their foreign market profits selling soy to China because Trump started his trade war. Not one republican spike out to farmers to get off their lazy asses and find another foreign market to sell to. Nope, the GOP gave farmers somewhere in the neighborhood of $37 billion for crops they no longer grow and sell to China. So they don't have to grow and sell their crops but still are paid for the losses in foreign market sales profits.
Borrowing $2 trillion to give to the wealthy and making everyone else pay back that loan. Why they didn't tell those billionaires to pull themselves up by their boot straps and get off their damn yachts and go to work. Well, that tax cut was for campaign donations for the GOP who are too lazy to work for their donations to their campaigns.
But hey, AOC by her wonder woman self, has these superpowers that supersedes being one of 435 other House republicans.
It is the Mad-mad-mad wild world of Republican "What the Fuck?" Which is south of Bim Fuck QANON. If you are looking on the map.
You see, as a Superior Being, Mr. Brooks has never felt overly burdened by the need to follow the same rules of conduct that he preaches so earnestly to us Lesser Beings.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, at any place or time."
-- Frank Wilhoit, 2018
Did he, will he get vaccinated? Inquiring minds expect he'll lie.
"And if all else fails" he can still teach another course in humility at Yale.
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