The Washington Post sure loves failure. That's the only thing I can make of their hiring of Marc Thiessen and Michael Gerson, former Bush speechwriters to their team.
Never thought anyone could be more unctuous than David Brooks until Michael Gerson showed up.
Me neither.
Like I said, if MSNBC cared about their ratings, Rachel Maddow would be hosting Meet the Press. Here she does David Gregory's job for him and corrects Rep. Aaron Schock for repeating the talking point that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab quit talking after he was read his Miranda rights and she points out that this was not an issue until a Democratic administration took office.
MR. GREGORY: Are Republicans and Republican attacks against this administration helping al-Qaeda?
REP. SCHOCK: Absolutely not. And I think it's insult to most Americans to suggest that their elected representatives who are carrying their views and the message of, of the majority of Americans to Washington and to this debate are somehow helping al-Qaeda. Mind you, these are the--many of these Democrats, including Mr. Brennan who served in the last administration, faced many of these same attacks under then-President Bush from, from the left. So the idea that we can't challenge the administration and their view on the fight on terrorism is completely bogus.
MR. GREGORY: What happened to Democrats when they challenged President Bush in the same way?
REP. SCHOCK: Well, some of the same, some of the same claims were made against them.
MR. GREGORY: Right.
REP. SCHOCK: But at the end of the day, we're representing mainstream America and the majority of views. And, and whether it's closing Guantanamo Bay and moving it to the heartland of America, whether it's the, the--trying these folks in downtown New York, whether it's Mirandizing terrorists who come to this country to attack us, the majority of Americans have not bought, do not believe that Obama and his administration is right on these policies.
MR. GREGORY: So you don't support the way the president is prosecuting the war on terror?
REP. SCHOCK: No.
From Meet the Press Rachel Maddow calls out Rep. Aaron Shock for taking credit for what the stimulus bill has done for his district while at the same time touting his vote against the stimulus bill. Schock tries to shift the argument to whether any Republicans were included in drafting the bill or not. David Gregory follows up and asks Schock if that means he won't take any federal money for his district or not and Schock responds that he thinks it is a ridiculous argument and is Rachel Maddow going to give back her Bush tax cuts she rails about and says his district deserves their share of federal spending. As Rachel points out though, that's not the problem but rather the rank hypocrisy of voting against something and then touting it.
If MSNBC actually cared about their ratings on this show, they'd get rid of Gregory and let Maddow host it.
MR. GREGORY: Congressman Schock, where are the Republicans going to be on this?
REP. SCHOCK: Well, look, I think, unfortunately, it's more of the same. I mean, all of this talk about bipartisanship, and yet the rhetoric doesn't match the reality. As David Brooks mentioned, there was some, some Republicans who worked with Democrats in the Senate to come up with a jobs bill only to have their leadership put the kibosh on it. We, we are for creating long-term economic growth. You do that by incentivizing entrepreneurialism, risk taking, and investment. You do that through creating certainty in the markets through certain tax incentives. And that's where we'll be on a jobs bill.
MR. GREGORY: So it sounds like you're--you like what the Democrats are doing here?
REP. SCHOCK: Well, I don't like all the pork that was in the bill. Seven hundred eighty-seven billion dollar stimulus bill, the largest spending bill in, in history, one of the reasons why it didn't create long-term growth is it didn't have stimulative tax cuts in it, but rather a lot of pork and spending.
MS. MADDOW: Which are the least stimulative things in the stimulus. I mean, when you assess what creates jobs, in the stimulus band it's the tax cuts that were put in in order to try to win Republican votes that didn't come anyway that are the least effective thing in the stimulus bill. So the theory doesn't match the practice here.
But, I mean, you, in your district...
The latest installation of the Bluegal and Driftglass podcast:
You can find previous editions if you missed them here.
Speaking of history revisionist David F-ing Brooks as Driftie refers to him, here's Driftglass' post on his appearance on Charlie Rose's show. He was on The PBS Newhour tonight and wasn't much better.
P.S. The Driftglass and Blue Gal Podcast is also available via free subscription through iTunes.
Digby turned me on to this interesting chat in the NY Times Opinionator between David Brooks and Gail Collins. Brooks was snowed in and suddenly found himself enthralled with Paul Ryan's insane budget proposal:
David Brooks: I actually find myself warming, unexpectedly, to Paul Ryan’s vision of government. Ryan, as you know is the Wisconsin House Republican who recently laid out a “Roadmap for America’s Future.” It is the most intellectually honest budget proposal I’ve seen. It really would produce a balanced budget. The Congressional Budget Office even says so.
It is also a vision for a voucher state. Government would have very few decision-making powers. Instead it would essentially redistribute money so that individuals could better secure their own welfare provision. Medicare and Social Security would essentially be turned into cash programs. The elderly would receive $11,000 a year to purchase insurance. The tax code would be radically simplified.
It's honest in the sense that Ryan wants to basically destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and he isn't afraid to say it. Republicans didn't get his back either because they know seniors do not like these entitlments f*&ked with.
Digby retorts:
Have these Republicans dealt with any elderly people recently? Do they know how much medical care they receive? Dealing with the health care system becomes the focus of their entire lives at some point. Yet, with out of pocket expenses, many people my age pay at least that much per year without even being seriously ill. The elderly, most of whom are dealing with both chronic and acute illness and injury, would be completely screwed with that small stipend. Even the more wealthy ones would quickly run out of money.
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Oh, and by the way, it turns out that Ryan's budget wouldn't eliminate the deficit after all.
Taibbi responds to the recent David Brooks column that's clearly aimed in his direction, and pretty much eviscerates him. Fine with me, since I can't stand Brooks' "rational centrist" schtick:
What’s so ironic about this is that Brooks, in arguing against class warfare, and trying to present himself as someone who is above making class distinctions, is making an argument based entirely on the notion that there is an lower class and an upper class and that the one should go easy on the other because the best hope for collective prosperity is the rich creating wealth for all. This is the same Randian bullshit that we’ve been hearing from people like Brooks for ages and its entire premise is really revolting and insulting — this idea that the way society works is that the productive ” rich” feed the needy “poor,” and that any attempt by the latter to punish the former for “excesses” might inspire Atlas to Shrug his way out of town and leave the helpless poor on their own to starve.
That’s basically Brooks’s entire argument here. Yes, the rich and powerful do rig the game in their own favor, and yes, they are guilty of “excesses” — but fucking deal with it, if you want to eat.....
After years of conservatives making sure that the government can’t work for average citizens and destroying it on purpose and the Democrats who actually do for the most part still care about governing but have decided to chase after the corporate teat and be Republican light to keep getting re-elected, Chris Matthews and his panel seem completely oblivious to the reasons that anyone who’s paying an ounce of attention to how they’re acting might just be more than a little pissed off at what’s going on in Washington right now.
The subjects for his panel for the day are “Will Obama Recalibrate His Agenda In Response To Voter Outrage?” and “White Flight: Why Have Working Class Whites Abandoned Obama?” Here are some of the highlights of their responses.
Matthews asks if Obama should have restored “faith in positive government” before trying to reform health care. David Brooks responds.
Brooks: Yeah, what’s the biggest issue of our lifetime? It’s that people used to trust government in the New Deal and the Great Society. Now like 17% of Americans trust government. And this distrust of government has been building and building and building. And Massachusetts is a phenomenon of that. And so the question before the Democrats is do we listen to the people and say hey, we’re scaling back, or do we say we really believe in our agenda, we don’t care what you say. We believe in it so much we’re going forward. And that’s the crucial decision they have.
As much as I disagree with them on so many issues, I'm glad to see David Brooks and the Wall Street Journal actually calling this terrorism fear mongering out for what it is. Playing politics to pretend there's ever any hope of catching everyone that might slip through the cracks with any security measures that are taken with our airlines.
Brooks reiterated some of what he wrote in his column at the New York Times during this interview on The Newshour on PBS. I'm quite sure the right won't be happy with them for acknowledging that the Muslim, socialist, left wing, terrorist loving, weak on national defense, non-waterboarding President Obama and his TSA might not be able to catch every one of those Underwear Bombers unless you want to do a cavity search on everyone that flies on an airplane performed personally by Dick Cheney... but somehow I think Brooks and the Wall Street Journal will survive the outrage on the right and continue to be a souce for more hackery we post about here later.
Brooks: They do a pretty good job of reducing the risk of terrorist attack. Occasionally, somebody gets through. That is going to inevitably happen.
We should have some sort of steady, level-headed response. That is the sign of a resilient nation. We don't have it. We have had the last week of the whole country going -- or at least the punditocracy -- going into semi-hysteria over this. And it's just not the sign of a serious country. And I think nobody has covered themselves with glory in all this.
John Amato:
I really hope I'm wrong, but it's probably going to happen again unfortunately. There are too many variables to control for a terrorist to always fail, but as a society we can react with maturity and a level head instead of the knee jerk FOX News led--GOP fearmongering assholes, who's only mission is to attack a Democratic president at every turn. Too bad our media doesn't use sensibility when something bad happens. Instead they point their microphones immediately at the first right wing hack that has nothing constructive to say.
Transcript via PBS below the fold.
Conservative columnist David Brooks expressed support for a system of health care that is most often demonized by the right wing. "I wouldn't mind a single-payer. I prefer it to what we have now," Brooks told ABC's Jake Tapper Sunday.
Brooks support for single-payer comes late in the health care reform debate. Both houses of Congress have passed reform bills which Brooks says he can't support. "I oppose it. It's a close call for me," said Brooks. "My preferred option is to give consumers choice."
In July, Brooks deflected a question about implementing a single-payer system. "There is no way something that big and complex and dynamic can be run out of Washington," he said.
TPM caught this clip from back in April with a prank call to David Brooks on Washington Journal and think it's the same man who called Sen. John Barrasso this week and claimed he was a teabagger who was afraid his prayers for Sen. Robert Byrd to die before the health care bill vote had backfired and something happened to Sen. James Inhofe instead. The above clip is from Washington Journal Dec. 22, 2009. Here's the clip from TPM with the call to David Brooks.
I think I found another clip with the same man. I knew that voice sounded familiar. Although this call was from Florida, I think it's the same person. I think I've heard him on there a few other times but haven't found any of the other clips. This is from March 29, 2009--Bill Kristol Doesn't Think He Owes Anyone An Apology For Hyping WMD Lies on Iraq.
Listen to all three and let me know if you think it's the same man.
Week after week, year after year, Bobo swims from spotlight to spotlight across the blighted media landscape of a country his ideology helped to mutilate...speaking gauzily of a sane, reasonable Republican Party that does not exist.
Open Thread below...
Columnist David Brooks is a conservative that isn't blindly devoted to former Gov. Sarah Palin. "She's a joke. I can't take her seriously," he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday. "The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the republican nomination, believe me, it will never happen. Republican primary voters are not going to elect a talk show host," said Brooks.
But the other conservative on the panel with Brooks wasn't buying into the Palin frenzy either. George Will thinks Republicans can do better. "Some conservatives think they have found in Sarah Palin a Republican William Jennings Bryan. Now, Why would they want someone who lost the presidency three times?" asked Will.
John Amato: David Brooks has never been much of a fan of Palin. This is from a piece in Oct, 2008:
[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party.
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But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.
CNN's media critic, Howard Kurtz, came up with THE answer to all our complaints:
KURTZ: And if liberals or conservatives like David Brooks don't like what the high-decibel pundits say or think they're peddling misinformation, they should go after them in the media marketplace, not with boycotts or name-calling or screaming or shouting, but on the battlefield of ideas.
Wow, that's so simple. Why didn't anybody think of that? Wait a second. Just hold on there. Isn't organizing a boycott an actual idea which then takes a ton of work to be successful? Isn't leading a boycott against a Glenn Beck or a Lou Dobbs actually going into the media marketplace and hitting them right in the pocketbook?
Can Howard suggest what battlefield of ideas I should go on? Does he consider Reliable Sources one of those battlefields? Can Howard help fund a radio program for me that will air either before or right after Sean Hannity, on all the same nationwide affiliates so I can at least partially compete with Hannidate's audience and have a chance to express my ideas at his level?
Bob Dole was told to keep his trap shut by non other than the odious Mitch McConnell, the man who has as an approval rating as low as Dick Cheney's.
The GOP’s 1996 candidate for president said he was asked by current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., not to issue a bipartisan statement calling for passage of health care reform legislation.
“We’re already hearing from some high-ranking Republicans that we shouldn’t do that — that’s helping the president,” Dole said. He later specified that the people he referred to included one “very prominent Republican, who happens to be the Republican leader of the Senate,” according to The Kansas City Star .Dole was also quoted as saying that partisanship by his own GOP was behind the delay in reaching agreement on a final health care bill..
I don't expect Dole to suddenly go on the air and rip into his party, but the fact that this much got out says a lot. The republicans have no plan for health care reform so any words that come from older republicans on the hot topic carries a sting to it.
Mitch will be on Face the Nation today and I wonder if Bob Schieffer will bring it up or read a David Brooks column. Maybe they'll just want to talk about the Nobel Peace prize. What do you think?
David Gregory asks his panel on Meet the Press about Alan Grayson's remarks on the House floor this past Tuesday and whether "there's a level of shrillness in the debate that is not helping America".
As Rachel Maddow points out, this type of rhetoric is so common with the GOP that it's hardly noticed, but when a Democrat does it everyone's suddenly paying attention to it.
David Brooks responds by trying to say it's all just a media circus and by doing his best to try to distance the Republican party from the likes of Beck, Limbaugh and Levin. Brooks is right about the media circus, but he's wrong about America being a "center-right" country and he's wrong about the influence of right wing talkers on the Republican Party. Just because a few of them are trying to distance themselves from Glenn Beck's madness doesn't mean they're not still dancing to their tune.
Transcript below the fold.
