Tuesday, March 03, 2009

If this man gives you advice, do the opposite.

This is a rare picture of David Brooks without his head in his ass. He's been called, here and elsewhere, the wrongest man in America, and given how many people have been wrong over the past 8 years, that's a heaping hunk of raw wrongitude. David Brooks is the King of Wrongistan. If you look up wrong in the dictionary, it will refer you to Brooks, David.

David Brooks writes for the New York Times. Yesterday, he wrote a column that reminded me of those Waffen SS officers who, once they lost the war, quickly shed their uniforms and tried to pass themselves off as helpless, war-weary German civilians.

"Hitler? Never heard of the guy."

In his column, with the oxymoronic title A Moderate Manifesto, Brooks tries to rebrand himself as a moderate and reveals just how far this pampered rich asshole is removed from the troubles that a generation of his brand of conservatism has inflicted on his fellow citizens.

Just listen to this:


But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.

No, it's just that you and the other Bush apologists gutted the treasury and left vitally important work to thieves like Halliburton. Now, the country has a whole bagful of problems that can no longer be put off.

So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see.

Yes, thanks for driving us into this ditch, you and the other Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman worshippers who foisted on us a monetarist policy based on servicing the debt. Now quit bitching, get the fuck out and help us push.

The U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment. Yet the Obama budget is predicated on a class divide. The president issued a read-my-lips pledge that no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the American people. All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward.

Apparently, Mr. Brooks thinks the only suffering during this crisis will be borne by people making over $250K whose tax rate will go up 4%! OMG, David, the misery you and your fellow patricians must endure, it's appalling.

Never mind the unemployed. Never mind those who will lose their homes. Never mind those who will lose their health insurance and get sick. Those people don't suffer. Hell, they don't know the meaning of the word suffering. David Brooks knows suffering.

I have a simple rule. Whenever I hear someone whine about being treated unfairly, I ask myself if I would switch places with them. If the answer is yes, I tell them to STFU and I reserve my sympathy for more deserving people.

The U.S. has always had vibrant neighborhood associations. But in its very first budget, the Obama administration raises the cost of charitable giving. It punishes civic activism and expands state intervention.

Yes, and according to poeple who actually think about this stuff rather than just spew bullshit, the taxes will cost charities 4 billion dollars out of the 300 billion given annually. Will it hurt? Yes. Does it"punish civic activism?" Fuck no.

The U.S. has traditionally had a relatively limited central government. But federal spending as a share of G.D.P. is zooming from its modern norm of 20 percent to an unacknowledged level somewhere far beyond.

Again, according to people who actually think about this shit, the level is estimated at around 60%, still lower than many wealthy European countries. And on a related note, every time I hear one of these conservatives bleat about spending too much I want to throw up. It was you neocon cocksuckers who got us into a 3 trillion dollar war, telling us that it wouldn't cost us a dime. Fuck you. Fuck you all.

As Clive Crook, an Obama admirer, wrote in The Financial Times, the Obama budget “contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.”

Here's another thing. Conservatives like Brooks, and don't let him fool you with that moderate uniform he's suddenly sporting, were the ones who chuckled when their tax guru Grover Norquist said "Bipartisanship is date rape." Now that their economic policies have mortgaged our asses to China, they're surprised no one wants to consult them on finances any more. Let me tell you, Mr. Brooks, taking economic advice from guys like you is like taking weight loss advice from Rush Limbaugh. Fuck you. And fuck Rush, too.


Those of us in the moderate tradition — the Hamiltonian tradition that believes in limited but energetic government — thus find ourselves facing a void. We moderates are going to have to assert ourselves. We’re going to have to take a centrist tendency that has been politically feckless and intellectually vapid and turn it into an influential force.

And David Brooks knows intellectually vapid.

But beyond that, moderates will have to sketch out an alternative vision. This is a vision of a nation in which we’re all in it together — in which burdens are shared broadly, rather than simply inflicted upon a small minority. This is a vision of a nation that does not try to build prosperity on a foundation of debt. This is a vision that puts competitiveness and growth first, not redistribution first.

Again, burdens inflicted upon a small minority. Take your patrician head out of your patrician ass, David, get out of the fucking limo and take a look around. The burdens are not being shared broadly and they haven't for quite some time. They're being shared by military families, the unemployed, the poor and all the workers who fear the next round of layoffs. Spare me the hand-wringing victimhood because your taxes will go up.

Moderates are going to have to try to tamp down the polarizing warfare that is sure to flow from Obama’s über-partisan budget.


Polarizing warfare? Fuck you. I remember during Reagan's term when the head of the RNC said I wasn't a "real American" because I wasn't a conservative. I remember when New Gingrich, your speaker, said that Susan Smith's murder of her two sons was a direct outgrowth of liberalism - until he found out she'd been molested by her right-wing Christian father. I remember the $77 million conservatives wasted trying to bring down Clinton. Fuck you and your polarizing warfare.

David Brooks, the Wrongest Man in America now appears to be one of the most dishonest.

Fuck him. And fuck the New York Times for giving him credibility.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fuck yeah, David!

I haven't been so happy to hear the F word since I watched the first 5 minutes of Step Brothers. While that movie went on a little long, your post is spot on.

Brooks pulls a switcheroo while the public is focusing its attention on Britney Spear's cum back tour. [I couldn't help myself. That's what she said.] Glad you're paying attention and offering such honest commentary.

Fuck you, too! Now go fail.

Rush

JD Rhoades said...

Awesome smackdown, my friend. Kudos.

Anonymous said...

Smackdown awesome ... except you fail to mention how much the Democratic Congress contributed to the economic meltdown from the time they took control (2+ years ago now). Not that they could reverse what Bush had done, but they could've tried. Instead they gave him whatever he wanted.

Come to think of it, so did Obama.

Bush, a few months before he's gone, became a sudden economic geniuse the Dems couldn't support enough (and thus bribed 12 pieces of Republican garbage who held out for $150 billion more in perks).

I like the passion (even though I don't feel that way about Brooks/I feel the same way about the Kennedy's living in their Ivory Tower as you do about Brooks, I guess), but yous guys really need to start aiming at least some of your angst (or focking angst) at the losers in the Democratic Congress who did nothing but acquiesce over and over again.

I know, it's another "endless" attempt to paint both parties with the same broad cynical brush ... but until you can show me there's a difference, I keep painting.

On a better note (and probably coming the day before I get laid off from one of my jobs), my new DW's are in transit as I type.

Pistolmom said...

www.freedoms-fight.blogspot.com

Beneath the Carolina Moon said...

What a froth of spewing venom you have today David! Brooks makes a living pissing people off with the written word, while other people are a little more constructive with it. What's new? By the way, I personally feel that 60% of the GNP is a bit much. Bush and the Democratic controlled congress spent us into oblivion, and now Obama and the Democratic controlled congress is going to spend us out of oblivion? Life is never as simple as I see it, but I don't understand how borrowing money and using it to spend our way out of debt is going to work. I guess two wrongs do make a right?

Dread

Anonymous said...

I loves me a good rant first thing in the morning. Thanks, David!

Quick note to Charlie's comments - yes, there are more Dems than I care to admit that bend over backwards for historically-proven wrong economic policies (I'm looking at you Bayh, Nelson, et al.) All in the name being "centrists". Eff 'em.

Still, with all the GOP barreling down the road to Limbaughville, I'll take my side any day.

David Terrenoire said...

Dread,

Two things:

Brooks makes a living pissing people off with the written word, while other people are a little more constructive with it. What's new?

This would be fine if Brooks wrote for the National Review or the Weekly Standard, but to have prime real estate in the NYT gives him a credibility he doesn't deserve.

Bush and the Democratic controlled congress spent us into oblivion...

Uh, no. The Democrats have been in control since 2006, and even then the Senate GOP obstructed any progressive movement with the filibuster. Before that, for six years, the GOP controlled all 3 branches of government and spent money like Paris Hilton with her grandad's credit card. This debt isn't the Democrats' debt.

Granted, they're piling it on now, in hopes that spending will right this sinking ship, but you can't blame where the debt is now on the Dems.

If it helps you sleep at night to think that, fine, but that doesn't make it true.

Anonymous said...

Milo said: "Still, with all the GOP barreling down the road to Limbaughville, I'll take my side any day."

I say: "What's the difference?"

Davey, Davey, Davey ... what say you to that $150 BILLION bribe the Dems successfully made at the 12 pieces of Republican garbage who'd held out until the "gift" arrived at their doorstep? I speak of TARP I and the "urgent" need to pass that (minus a few extra days off, including a religious holiday).

And PLEASE don't forget who was in charge of the "oversight" committee ... our man Barney Frank and his incredible ability to excuse himself from all and any blame. If it was his job as chairman of oversight (as in "not see") what was going on (like in his basement), he did a GREAT job of it.

Vey iz mir ...

Anonymous said...

Just one other thing ... you equated the NY Times with credibility.

That's a very tough one to swallow, Davey 3x's ...

I'm still waiting for their followup about why Caroline, you konw, um, Kennedy "suddenly" opted out of the NY Senate bonanza.

Beneath the Carolina Moon said...

"Brooks makes a living pissing people off with the written word, while other people are a little more constructive with it. What's new?

This would be fine if Brooks wrote for the National Review or the Weekly Standard, but to have prime real estate in the NYT gives him a credibility he doesn't deserve."

So life ain't fair? No shit? Damn! And I thought Brittney Spears deserved all the spotlight she gets. Wow! I have been misguided!

We'll just have to agree to disagree on Congress. SOMEBODY passed the bugdets and spending bills and it wasn't the Supreme Court.