Tuesday, January 06, 2004
How do I nominate David "Burbling" Brooks for whore of the year?
And here I thought David "I'm writing as bad as I can" Brooks was going to be the quiet, calm one, in contrast to the utterly compromised operative Safire. After all, wasn't Brooks the author of the moderate-sounding article in The Atlantic that argued that there weren't any real differences between Red States and Blue States?[1]
Boy, was I wrong. Get a load of Brooks's latest hissy fit:
Travel in different circles?! Don't have much contact?!?! Has Brooks never heard of email? Or air travel? Move along people, move along! There's no story here! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! And, Dave? May I call you Dave? Moon this ....
Anyhow, in the extract from Brook's screed above, I left out all the "analytical" material—the veiled accusation that criticism of the neo-cons is based on anti-semitism, the Uriah Heep-like sanctimony that electornic media allow people to live "unburdened by ambiguity" (people like Bush), and so on, and on, and on.
Because the interesting part of the column is that, on internal evidence, it refutes itself. Brooks is concerned to show that control of American foreign policy has not been seized by a winger cabal. It would appear that he is, himself, part of at least one cabal, since he guffaws with like-minded people about it, seems to know who travels with whom, and who has contact with whom. How did he acquire all this detail, anyhow, without being part of the same social network he is at pains to argue doesn't exist?
UPDATE The ever-essential Daily Howler has more. As do Oliver Willis, tbogg, Tom Tomorrow, and Josh Marshall.
UPDATE Brooks is already nominated. Cast your vote here.
NOTE
[1]Of course, the Blue States do send, on average, $500 person to the Blue States, if that makes any difference....
Boy, was I wrong. Get a load of Brooks's latest hissy fit:
Do you ever get the sense the whole world is becoming unhinged from reality? I started feeling that way awhile ago, when I was still working for The Weekly Standard and all these articles began appearing about how Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, Bill Kristol and a bunch of "neoconservatives" at the magazine had taken over U.S. foreign policy. ... Theories about the tightly knit neocon cabal came in waves. ... The full-mooners fixated on a think tank called the Project for the New American Century ...
We'd sit around the magazine guffawing at the ludicrous stories .... In truth, the people labeled neocons (con is short for "conservative" and neo is short for "Jewish") travel in widely different circles and don't actually have much contact with one another. ....
Travel in different circles?! Don't have much contact?!?! Has Brooks never heard of email? Or air travel? Move along people, move along! There's no story here! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! And, Dave? May I call you Dave? Moon this ....
Anyhow, in the extract from Brook's screed above, I left out all the "analytical" material—the veiled accusation that criticism of the neo-cons is based on anti-semitism, the Uriah Heep-like sanctimony that electornic media allow people to live "unburdened by ambiguity" (people like Bush), and so on, and on, and on.
Because the interesting part of the column is that, on internal evidence, it refutes itself. Brooks is concerned to show that control of American foreign policy has not been seized by a winger cabal. It would appear that he is, himself, part of at least one cabal, since he guffaws with like-minded people about it, seems to know who travels with whom, and who has contact with whom. How did he acquire all this detail, anyhow, without being part of the same social network he is at pains to argue doesn't exist?
UPDATE The ever-essential Daily Howler has more. As do Oliver Willis, tbogg, Tom Tomorrow, and Josh Marshall.
UPDATE Brooks is already nominated. Cast your vote here.
NOTE
[1]Of course, the Blue States do send, on average, $500 person to the Blue States, if that makes any difference....
