Paragraphs I Wished I Hadn't Read

From (surprise!) David Brooks:

Over the summer, I wrote a tough column wondering if Obama had the tenacity to fight a long war in Afghanistan. That week, I ran into Rahm at a Bruce Springsteen concert. He was clearly angry and would barely shake my hand. "That column. …" he said, icily, and then walked away.

Comments

[?]

Isn't it unseemly to call yourself a martyr?

[ClubMedSux]

RE: the alt text...

Glory days may have passed the Boss by, but I would say Devito's caught his second wind with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

[Irresponsible Hater]

DeVito has been reborn thanks to Sunny.

Specifically, reborn naked, sweaty, and fully (de-)formed, from a couch.

[Alan Vanneman]

Oh, that David Brooks! He does write a tough column, doesn't he? I mean, the guy totally kicks ass! Totally! If only he would go to, you know, Afghanistan, and settle this shit once and for all! Then, I for one would be glad to shake his hand!

[The Gobbler]

Shouldn't you be at home working on your next James Bond novel?

[BakedPenguin]

Vanneman can be a real pain in the ass, but shouldn't you wait until he actually says something stupid to insult him?

I mean, just as a courtesy.

[Warty]

What? Of course not. VANNEMAN DELENDA EST

[Fluffy]

David Brooks.

Maureen Dowd.

Paul Krugman.

Frank Rich.

Thomas Friedman.

Has there ever been an organization with a worse collection of scum and villainy than this one?

I mean, if these guys all show up to the same staff meeting, it makes the Wannsee Conference look good.

[Tulpa]

Don't forget Bill Kristol.

[Fluffy]

Wow, I forgot the worst of all.

I think that's because I try to blank out the fact that Kristol hasn't been devoured by intestinal parasites as he deserves yet.

[BakedPenguin]

"Kristol hasn't been devoured by intestinal parasites"

They don't feed on their own.

[Puff-pass]

Replaced by Ross Douthat over a year ago.

Where do you get your weed?

[Fluffy]

Well that's good.

Douthat is lucky that the guy he replaced made it impossible for him to not be an improvement.

Douthat is the Terry Francona of the New York Times.

[vanya]

Krugman doesn't belong in that list. You have every right to disagree with his conclusions and policy ideas, but Paul at least tries to think. He may be too enamored with his own intelligence, but at least he has some, unlike the rest of this motley crew.

[bubba]

and then he lets his wife flesh out his column with smarm.

[Mr. FIFY]

Why anyone would give Krugman any credit, is a sign of the collective decline of critical thinking in America.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

No he doesn't - he thoughtlessly regurgitates the idea that we can spend ourselves to prosperity and continually points out that Bush expanded the debt irresponsibly - only when Democrats do it is it responsible, nay, mandatory. He's just another hack who ignores his internal cognitive dissonance like all the rest of them and ends up as another hypocrite spouting tired Democratic talking points and failed Keynesian economics.

[BakedPenguin]

vanya, now that mercantilism is becoming all the rage, let's see if he ever addresses it - and which side he (now) comes out on.

[Drax the Destroyer]

Jabba the Hutt's entourage?

[John]

WAPO does its best to keep pace.

Bob Herbert
Richard Cohen
Micheal Rabbi Moonbeam Gerson
Dana Milbank
E.J. Dione
Ezra Klein

If NYT writers are the 27 Yankees of stupidity, the WAPO is the 29 As. Granted they do have Ann Applebaum who kind of throws things off. But still.

[JW]

How could you leave out the living stool samples that are Eugene Robinson and Courtland Milloy?

I actually think they out-class Friedman and Brooks at pure scumminess and unadulterated mendaciousness.

[JW]

mendaciousness = mendacity.

[John]

They are the worst.

[Kaiser]

I used to enjoy Courtland Milloy as he brought attention to stories no one else was writing about--the utter failure of various DC departments in executing their missions, particularly Youth Rehabilitation Services.

However, in the past few months, he's really gone off the deep end about Michelle Rhee.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Now that is just racist. You know stool tends to be brown, right?

[Kaiser]

Bob Herbert is a NY Times columnist, not with the WaPo. The WaPo also has George Will and Charles Krauthammer. I find their op-ed page far more balanced than the NYT's.

[Episiarch]

Ah yes, Krauthammer, the anti-gun crippled neocon. He's balanced in that you can always predict what he'll say; basically, the same thing as Bill Kristol but without the smarm.

[Abdul]

"Later, at the Peter, Paul, and Mary reunion in Central Park, I felt a swift kick in the nuts and turned to see David Axlerod polishing his loafers and muttering something about my column. . . . It made me wistful for the Bush administration, because they never attended lame Baby Boomer events, unless Willie Nelson was making a guest appearance."

[Max]

Rahm should have kicked his ass! Brooks is a vicious rightwinger!

[Max]

ARFARFARFARFARFARFARFARFARFARFARF!!!!!!!!!!

[alan]

Rahm has the Napoleon complex in spades. He wouldn't last a round with a fifteen year old Vegan ginger chess club president.

[Eric Massa]

At least he wasn't naked when he accosted you.

[P Brooks]

In David Brooks' world, what could be worse than being snubbed by a powerful White House insider?

[Pro Libertate]

Snubbed? Snubbed is no handshake. Barely getting a handshake is a mild rebuke, especially after he performs his usual sodomy.

[Brett L]

Just the opposite. See how independent Brooks is? Rahm was so angry he could barely speak. We should all take back the things we said about him being a hack.

Transparent and boring. I'm glad both sides accurately judge him a hack.

[Puff-pass]

This is the definition of "cocksucker." Nothing to do with homosexuality, everything to do with being a sniveling worm who survives on a diet of pure cowardice and pomposity. Sycophant? Or sick infant?

[TDR]

Also consider "lickspittle," my favorite 19th century variant.

[P Brooks]

I wrote a tough column wondering if Obama had the tenacity to fight a long war in Afghanistan.

And all this time I have been wondering if any politician in this country had the backbone to not fight a long war in Afghanistan.

[Isaac Bartram]

I wonder the same thing.

I also wonder what, exactly, would constitute winning. Seeing as how the people don't want us there, does that mean we have to kill them all?

And having killed them all, what exactly would we have won?

[Mike]

Oil, natural gas, and lots and lots of industrial minerals.

Other than that, though, nothing.

[Isaac Bartram]

Couldn't we, like, just buy all that shit from them without killing them? (and also without getting a bunch of out own people killed and spending a shitload of money)

[wylie]

But then who do we kill? SOMEbody's gotta die in the exchange.

[Isaac Bartram]

Kenny?

[alan]

[sarcasm on] Nice going Brooksie. Now that you have alienated the White House with your refusal to be totally acquiescent to them, where is Obama going to get a counter view point from? You were the only one from the right he trusted, and you had to go and betray that trust that you would never write anything that would challenge him. The bubble just got a little more opaque thanks to you. [sarcasm off]

[Franklin Harris]

Another reason why Bruce Springsteen sucks: He brings the likes of Rahm Emanuel and David Brooks together.

[alan]

I protested the choice they made to have him 'sing' at the Superbowl half time show a few years back, but in a way it was good thing. Far more people agree with the sentiment that he sucks now after watching that than ever before. He may have put on a dynamic show back in the 70's but by '87 when I caught Tunnel of Love his show was blue balls boring as Hell as they rattled away on out of tune instruments. That is far more years of suckage to coolness even if I take for granted the myth of the later to have been true.

[Mongo]

Springsteen is great -- it's the E Street Band that I can't tolerate.

[zoltan]

P.J. O'Rourke loves the shit out of David Brooks and thinks he should run the NYT.

[Hazel Meade]

Poor Brooks, those liberals are so mean to him.