David Brooks on the Faults of the Tea Party — Faults That MOST DEFINITELY!!!1!!1! Are Not Shared by Obama
David Brooks on the Tea Party:
Along the way, the movement has picked up some of the worst excesses of modern American culture: a narcissistic sense of victimization, an egomaniacal belief in one’s own rightness and purity, a willingness to distort the truth so that every conflict becomes a contest of pure good versus pure evil.
It’s good to know none of this applies to the Democrat party!
Narcissism? Brooks thinks the Tea Party suffers from it, but does not mention Obama. I guess Brooks thinks there’s no narcissism in Obama’s comparing his election to the fall of the Berlin Wall, or turning the White House into almost a shrine to himself, or reading a letter from someone who says she is going to be buried in an Obama T-shirt, or building an imperial stage for his nomination speech, or writing his autobiography years before being elected President.
Victimhood? Brooks thinks the Tea Party has it — but not Obama, who thinks people don’t like him because of his middle name, which his wife calls the “fear bomb”; or who plays the race card (I don’t “look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills”).
An egomaniacal belief in one’s own rightness and purity? Are you kidding me, David Brooks?
Obama humiliated the Supreme Court in front of the nation. He humiliated Netanyahu. He gives his opponents the finger (not once, not twice, but three times). He is haughty with opponents (even as Michelle assures us that he is never disagreeable).
A willingness to distort the truth so that every conflict becomes a contest of pure good versus pure evil? David Brooks, are you telling me that the Tea Partiers distort the truth, and President Obama doesn’t?
Let me list just a few examples, Mr. Brooks.
Obama claimed an aide filled out a questionnaire with extreme views, but his handwriting showed up on the form. He said he wouldn’t run for president in 2008 and then did. He ran a dishonest ad tying John McCain to Rush Limbaugh on the issue of immigration reform — and distorting Limbaugh’s quotes beyond all recognition in the process. He claimed McCain was “fueled” by money from lobbyists and PACs, when that actually accounted for only 1.7% of McCain’s money.
Obama flat-out lied about taking public financing — and he lied about why he didn’t do it, blaming it all on McCain when it was his own decision. Obama misstated the reason that he voted against a bill that would have required doctors to give medical attention to babies born alive after a botched abortion. Obama took money from oil companies and claimed he didn’t.
He inflated his role in the creation of the stimulus package. He was deceptive about McCain’s regulatory record.
Since being President, he has misrepresented job creation numbers; broken his promise to allow bills to be reviewed by the public before passage; broken his promise to have no lobbyists in the White House; broken his promise to close Gitmo (thank goodness), and has broken a whole host of other promises. He has lied about whether ObamaCare would cover illegals and a host of other things.
He asked people to send “fishy” online commentary about his health care plan to a special e-mail address: flag@whitehouse.gov. Sounds like someone making a list — but it’s all for the greater good, you see.
Obama has consistently demonized his opponents — including the Tea Partiers, the GOP, Fox News, BP and other oil companies, “bitter clingers” who won’t vote for him, Wall Street/banks and businesses, the rich (especially those who got bonuses), insurance companies during the health care debate, car companies, and anyone who opposes unions or him.
He called the Cambridge police “stupid”; has demonized insurance companies; gone after Rush Limbaugh; and recently declared war on John Boehner.
I don’t really have to list all the ways he has demonized and blamed George W. Bush, do I?
Yet according to David Brooks, the people who distort the truth and demonize opponents in an effort to paint themselves as the Good fighting the Evil are . . . the Tea Partiers.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the “conservative” at the New York Times could see a few logs in the opponents’ eyes, even as he whines about the mote in the eyes of the Tea Party?
Thanks to a reader who pointed me to the link, gave me considerable help in researching this, and listed all the people and groups Obama has demonized.
I think many of you know who that is . . . but I’m not sayin’.
Patterico (c218bd) — 9/18/2010 @ 3:24 pmSome people look at this as a fight between realists and idealists. Others as between statists and non-statists.
Truth is, this is high school: the “new kids” versus the self identified “cool kids.”
Brooks thinks he is one of the cool kids.
Eric Blair (58b0cf) — 9/18/2010 @ 3:28 pmI haven’t seen that much blue on my screen since 2008
happyfeet (19c1da) — 9/18/2010 @ 3:29 pmsee this is what happens when you let people conflate the Tea Party with Sarah Palin… used to be they were separate – the Alaska wench was off campaigning for Meghan’s coward daddy while for reals Americans were focused on the spending… now tundra ho is all about hijacking the Party of Tea…
not a healthy development
happyfeet (19c1da) — 9/18/2010 @ 3:31 pmSigh.
Eric Blair (58b0cf) — 9/18/2010 @ 3:32 pmNext you will say that calling someone a “ho” isn’t sexist.
C’mon, man. You don’t like her. Fine. Just say “you know what I think” and move on. Jeez.
Eric Blair (58b0cf) — 9/18/2010 @ 3:33 pm“Along the way, the movement has picked up some of the worst excesses of modern American culture…”
You mean they’re going around doing stuff like rounding up innocent American citizens and tossing them in concentration camps like the Dems did?
Haven’t heard about that.
Dave Surls (ff14be) — 9/18/2010 @ 3:33 pm“…a narcissistic sense of victimization…”
Hey is that as excessive as lynching black folks for trying to exercise their right to vote like the Dems used to do?
Just wondering what sort of “worst excesses” we’re talking about here.
Dave Surls (ff14be) — 9/18/2010 @ 3:37 pm___________________________________________
Wouldn’t it be nice if the “conservative” at the New York Times could see a few logs in the opponents’ eyes,
Brooks is as squishy as a marshmallow, and he’s conservative only in the context of the uber-liberal New York Times or people like the ultra-leftist now in the Oval Office.
Sorry, David, but your man crush on Barack “Goddamn America” Obama may prevent you from ever admitting that, yep, the guy did “fuck this up.”
Mark (3e3a7c) — 9/18/2010 @ 4:04 pmDavid Brooks is petrified by the thought that his coven of the “Educated Class” might be in jeapordy of losing their pre-eminent position in society, and actually have to go out and rub-elbows with the great unwashed “Country Class”.
AD-RtR/OS! (39097e) — 9/18/2010 @ 4:21 pmAnd, even worse, find out that some of them are more knowledgeable, and accomplished, than he and his peers – and are unimpressed with his credentials.
like the tom friedman
ColonelHaiku (1546ed) — 9/18/2010 @ 4:25 pma little bit of Brooks goes
a long, long, LONG way
feets – I haven’t seen this much blue since Karl’s last post.
daleyrocks (940075) — 9/18/2010 @ 4:29 pmPatterico:
During that period, I rushed to report myself and Big Lizards, hoping something would come of it. But it was just another broken Obamic promise, like global climate disruption.
Dafydd
Dafydd the Reminiscent (632d00) — 9/18/2010 @ 4:59 pmIf it wasn’t for “Global Climate Disruption” we would have more Big Lizards, would we not?
AD-RtR/OS! (39097e) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:08 pmI thought people might find the links useful. It helps me to compile little lists of Obama’s lies and such, for useful reference later.
Patterico (c218bd) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:09 pmThe TEA party’s very existence (and the Media being forced to report on it. However distorted that coverage comes across.) is a direct counter to all the blather that spews forth from Brooks’ mouth.
When faced with video and transcriptions of the true, heartfelt beliefs and ideals of REAL conservatives, his watered down, liberal New York Times endorsed brand of ‘conservatism’ is shown for what it truly is; a living straw man to parade around and parrot what Liberals THINK conservatism means.
His blatherings are solely for the purposes of disinformation, misdirection and propaganda in aid of the Democrat/Liberal/Progressive Apparat that uses the offices of the New York Times and other bastions of Liberal Media to promote and promulgate the latest hit piece on the American People and the country.
One of the few good things about Obama’s Presidency has been the revelation of the Media’s willingness to lie, obfuscate and ignore whatever they believe to be damaging to the Leftist/Liberal agenda. They have doubled down on Obama and I believe that when the River card is dealt, we’ll be holding trip Aces and the Left will be looking at a gut shot straight that they’ve been bluffing on for 50 years.
jakee308 (e1996a) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:10 pmJust post a link to the WH website, everything there is a lie.
AD-RtR/OS! (39097e) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:10 pmDon’t worry about teasing on all the links. I think it’s excellent. This one will go in my file of resources. It is a perfect example of the real purpose for HyperTestMarkupLanguage links.
Gesundheit (aab7c6) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:16 pmThe Establishment Party is getting scared and is pulling out all their tools. And is Brooks ever a tool.
Kevin (298030) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:19 pmI think it’s epic
happyfeet (19c1da) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:28 pmThe sad part is the attention given to “lies” by Team R and how “lies” by Team D are ignored.
I mean, this is the most honest and open Congress in history? Remember the photo?
People yawn. But they don’t seem to yawn when it is Team R caught in something that doesn’t smell quite right.
I would be so very pleased if BOTH sides were held to, well, standards.
Eric Blair (58b0cf) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:31 pmAnd is Brooks ever a tool.
Colonel think the Times
ColonelHaiku (1546ed) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:35 pmputs something in the water
cooler… just a guess
When Brooks thought of “a narcissistic sense of victimization” he probably was reading a copy of this post which had somehow traveled back in time
timb (8f04c0) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:40 pmWouldn’t it be nice if the “conservative” at the New York Times
Are you unaware of Ross Douthat?
Foo Bar (c1726e) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:42 pmUh oh, here comes Hot Air traffic….hopefully the new host holds up!
Cankle (4a1a0d) — 9/18/2010 @ 5:48 pmNice job of showing what a clown Brooks is. Does he even read his own column before hitting “Publish”?
SPQR (26be8b) — 9/18/2010 @ 6:05 pmtim timmahtim tim
ColonelHaiku (1546ed) — 9/18/2010 @ 6:14 pmtimmahtim timtim’s sorry
mary poppins guy
“Along the way, the movement has picked up some of the worst excesses of modern American culture…”
Being the potted plant ‘conservative’ for the liberal NY Times?
The elitist dissection of popular movements that treats real Americans like ‘bitter, clinger’ equivalents of ants under a microscope?
Oh no … ‘narcissism’ … yeah, showing up to protests because you are freaking out over the impending bankruptcy of the United States and the destruction of the Productive Class is always the first thing a narcissist does. Sigh.
Patrick (6dd9c5) — 9/18/2010 @ 6:30 pmtimmah prolly got a little tingle when he typed that.
JD (8ded14) — 9/18/2010 @ 6:37 pmReading David Brooks’ “Bobos in Paradise” is torture. TORTURE. Getting all your hobbyhorses together in one obnoxious book does not a cultural shift make.
This is also the neocon dope who got the nation-building/American greatness ball rolling.So when you hear another Pentagon employee refuse to say who our enemy is while announcing a new high falutin’ way to not fight a war, think of this genius.
He does Obama no favors. Keep it up, elitist.
Bugg (4e0dda) — 9/18/2010 @ 6:39 pmYeah, it does sound like Obama and Pelosi too when you think about.
Terrye (7d99e4) — 9/18/2010 @ 6:43 pmI saw Rasmussen had a poll on the Tea Party and it said that 32% had a positive attitude toward the Tea Party and 38% had a negative opinion. 26% in between and 4% did not know. I thought that was odd.
Terrye (7d99e4) — 9/18/2010 @ 6:45 pmMasterful post, Patterico.
Brooks should take a long vacation somewhere.
Patricia (9c62d9) — 9/18/2010 @ 7:40 pmI think it would be a good idea to take all the weird stuff Obama has done and make a chronological list of them complete with corroborating links or other evidence. Then have a greatest hits version of all the major stuff. And then the equivalent lists of votes by Democrats with links to the roll call votes.
Jeff Mitchell (0204be) — 9/18/2010 @ 7:49 pmI thought people might find the links useful. It helps me to compile little lists of Obama’s lies and such, for useful reference later.
Comment by Patterico — 9/18/2010 @ 5:09 pm
Like Gesundheit, bookmarked this for future reference. People have really short memories about all the reasons this guy would never even have become President, let alone stay alive in the polls as long as he’s done, except for the MSM’s malpractice. It’s good to have the evidence easily at hand to show them.
no one you know (72db9b) — 9/18/2010 @ 8:05 pmNOYK,
You’re right, it is good to have the evidence easily at hand. But that assumes evidence will have an impact or even change people’s minds. It’s still jarring to me to realize that where Obama is concerned, evidence and facts matter little. Loyalists will deny, refuse, and reject any proof that does not fit their own personal descriptors of their savior. Savior with a small s.
Unfortunately I’m catching a familiar whiff of this coming from the right, as well. Integrity needs to never be relegated to the backseat, no matter what the cost.
Dana (8ba2fb) — 9/18/2010 @ 8:26 pmBrooks is a prim and sanctimonious little shit who, like most of the NYT “conservatives” over the years (Safire, et al), is actually an FDR lib who feigns a rightward tilt because the gig pays better than what his talent would otherwise earn him. I read him for a laugh. He is our court jester.
Kevin Stafford (abdb87) — 9/18/2010 @ 8:55 pmUnfortunately I’m catching a familiar whiff of this coming from the right, as well. Integrity needs to never be relegated to the backseat, no matter what the cost.
Comment by Dana — 9/18/2010 @ 8:26 pm
Well said. And it’s true that faaarrr too many people ignore evidence in favor of their prejudices. I keep being reminded of the first of the Screwtape Letters and how prescient they were [a devil speaking to his ‘nephew’]:
But are you not being a trifle naif? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons, we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily “true” or “false,” but as “academic” or “practical,” “outworn” or “contemporary,” “conventional” or “ruthless.” Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.
And yet what other weapons do we have but the truth? It is massively discouraging to see how little many people value evidence and the plain truth. But enough still do, IMO anyway, to make our efforts worth it. Maybe I’m being too optimistic.
no one you know (72db9b) — 9/18/2010 @ 9:08 pmSheesh. Okay, messed up the itals. That big paragraph is CS Lewis’ obviously.
no one you know (72db9b) — 9/18/2010 @ 9:09 pmDouthat says something intelligent once in a while, as even Brooks does. but his policies are heavily influenced by the governing party.
Mike K (11fb04) — 9/18/2010 @ 9:16 pmLooking at this pond-runoff shallow post, I see it as a parallel capitulation to those of Karl Rove during the last two days of the week as he tried to extricate himself from all the poo the Fox faux journalists threw on him for his analysis of the O’Donnell nomination.
I don’t agree with much of what Brooks writes; it’s typically such Buckley-lite treacle, you could get diabetes. And I don’t think Ive ever before written any sort of defense of Rove. But the thing Brooks gets wrong in this column isn’t what Patterico goes after (which is, after all, nothing more than You say TP’ers are X, or Y, or Z and I say Obama is too so there), but his conclusion.
Roves concern is you can’t win with ODonnell. He’s not concerned about governance; he’s always
no matter how cranky, because he knows Republican politicians don’t govern because they can’t govern — they are, and are happy to remain, simply a vehicle lobbyists manipulate so special interests can govern in their areas of special interest. Give Rove a Washington full of the likes of Palin, Bachman, Buck, Angle, Rand Paul, Rubio, Johnson, Blount, King and King, and he and McConnell and Cornyn would have no problem managing them and helping lobbyists work around them to get on with government by, for and of special interests.
Brooks’ concern is in contrast: you CAN win with TPers (Note his deference to the Charlie Cook view.), but you just can’t govern. He could be that naive, but I doubt it. Several here suggest Brooks is really expressing his fear for the future of centrism, to wit where he has parked his soapbox (and where Obama parks his bully pulpit and his policy platform, despite all this nonsense about nazicommiesocialism; hes no progressive, hes only nominally a liberal, and his most outstanding attribute his instinct to mediate), and that it would be too much of strain on him to rationalize such a world into two columns and a tv appearance weekly. I think that looks more likely.
But in listing the general characteristics of the TP movement, Brooks does have it right, and Patterico has manufactured a false equivalence.
The reason I’m not particularly worried about the TPers per se is that I’m so freaking old I remember McCarthyism and the Birchers and the extreme right coalitions that came together around candidates like Goldwater, then later Reagan and most recently Bush; they were always around — now they have a single name. I am worried about the viability of the republic, but that’s because the people know they need change yet fear it so much they prefer to change politicians rather than policies. Ignorance and fear is such a winning combination these days.
shooter (32dc25) — 9/18/2010 @ 10:15 pmHow many strawmen died while typing that, shooter? Is this the good faith dialogue people were hoping from you?
JD (8ded14) — 9/18/2010 @ 10:21 pmI’m not accustomed to the local trolls, so I was actually reading shooter’s comment in serious fashion.
Then he said W was far right…and I realized that shooter is in fact a total moron.
Britt (ef4254) — 9/18/2010 @ 10:44 pmBritt: please do not insult total morons….
they have feelings too.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 9/18/2010 @ 11:01 pmEar Leader is singularly incapable of “humiliating” anyone but himself, and even that won’t happen, since he lacks a personal sense of shame.
he has no personal achievements which might create a sense of gravitas, nor a long history of accomplishment that would establish him as a mover and shaker. there is no inner strength to make others look to him for leadership or guidance.
all that can be found is a whinny little biotch of a pissant, desperately in need of of some Midol and a mocha grande while waiting for the new, higher dose Premarin script to be filled.
Ear Leader talking smack to SCOTUS is like my neighbor’s yappy dog barking when i come over to give them a hand. yeah, you hear something, but it doesn’t mean anything, nor is it anything more than a passing annoyance.
sucks to be him almost as much as it sucks to have his sorry ass in the White House.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 9/18/2010 @ 11:29 pmExcept I did NOT say W was far right. What I DID say the far right coalesced around him. A lot of that was owing to his incessantly crediting born again crapola for getting him off the booze and coke; most of it has to do with doing what he had to do to carry out the family business; but a lot of it had to do with how Rove moves around single-interest constituencies of the narrow-minded and ignorant.
Nor did I say Reagan was far right. Reagan was an actor, and a far more successful one off stage than he was on the big screen. At the beginning of the 1950s, Reagan’s career was floundering — his metier was always the young-up-and-coming this or that, or the late-career redeemed athlete, or the returning warrior, and all those were time-delimited markets — so he tried to branch out into the emerging political spokesperson racket. He found there was little to no money working that racket from the left side, so, he switched.
Goldwater, though, I think was different; he believed what he said through the sixties — just as he believed what he said from the 1980s on, when he threw over pretty much everything he said in the 1960s.
shooter (32dc25) — 9/18/2010 @ 11:37 pmLooking at this pond-runoff shallow post, I see it as a parallel capitulation to those of Karl Rove during the last two days of the week as he tried to extricate himself from all the poo the Fox faux journalists threw on him for his analysis of the O’Donnell nomination.
Uh huh. I see it as chock-full of links and proof that you can’t refute about what a lying douchebag Obama is.
I stand behind Karl Rove and what he originally said, too, by the way. He was right. And he was right to say it.
Thanks for your asshattery, shooter. I once thought you were better than this.
Patterico (c218bd) — 9/19/2010 @ 12:03 amYou’re missing the point, although I’m not sure whether to attribute it to malice or stupidity.
Patterico’s point is that Brooks is a flaming hypocrite: if X, Y, and/or Z are sufficient reasons to express disapproval of the Tea Party, and Obama shares X, Y, and/or Z, then why hasn’t Brooks been denouncing Obama?
My guess? He doesn’t really give a shit about X, Y, and Z. He just wants to knock the Tea Party with the best weapon at hand.
CliveStaples (76caa1) — 9/19/2010 @ 12:14 amBrooks also serves as a useful tool for the left who can repeatedly point to him and say, “see Brooks is a conservative and even he has no use for the (insert favorite lefty whipping boy here).” He is similar to McCain in that he gives comfort to the same types of people-the so called educated liberal -who would love nothing more than to stomp all conservatives out of existence. Do you think that Brooks would be in the NYT if he were a staunch defender of the Tea Party? Of course not. He knows that and he writes to the pre conceived biases of an urban-liberal audience that is the base of the NYT.
BT (74cbec) — 9/19/2010 @ 4:34 amComment by happyfeet not a healthy development
There. FTFY!
Icy Texan (6c1e87) — 9/19/2010 @ 4:49 amimdw’s non sequitur/ad hominem attack crowd rests upon the head of a new champion.
Icy Texan (6c1e87) — 9/19/2010 @ 5:01 amPatterico…..your whole post is an empirical validation of Brooks thesis.
wheeler's cat (60673b) — 9/19/2010 @ 7:28 amThe GOP has succeeded for 50 years with IQ-baiting and race-baiting and youth-baiting and religious purity…..now your side is pretty uniformly old white anti-intellectual rural christians.
surprise…..the demographic timer keeps ticking.
Palin and O’Donnell are just shinies the oligarchs are using to distract you cudlips from the hammergun of the demographic timer at the end of the conveyor belt.
Shorter Patterico (channelling Peewee Herman)
wheeler's cat (60673b) — 9/19/2010 @ 7:31 amPatterico-
MayBee (1127e0) — 9/19/2010 @ 7:44 amxoxoxo,
MayBee
Someone should tell Obama that, even if everything was going his way, his would still be the loneliest job in the world.
The Sanity Inspector (5e8c68) — 9/19/2010 @ 7:48 amand the hits just keep on coming.
wheeler's cat (60673b) — 9/19/2010 @ 7:56 amdo you wonder why 94% of scientists are NOT-republican?
this woman is just a crank, and (unlike Palin) she’s been a lot vocal about it.
your plausible deniability is going to burn like a lighter-fluid soaked Koran on a park grill when opposition research gets going next month.
shooter, you live in an alternate universe I guess. Because all these things you claim happened simply didn’t. Zip. Zipola. Nada. Completely inventing history to match your fantasy is something we see from nishi/wheeler’s cat.
SPQR (26be8b) — 9/19/2010 @ 8:02 amFor Brooks and the Left, agreeing with them constitutes the ever-important “dialogue”. If you disagree you are obstructionist, you are divisive, you are in the way.
But even if you agree with Brooks’ flawed nonsense, it’s irrelevant. It really isn’t that complicated, whether you went to an Ivy school or wear a blue collar-WE’RE BROKE;CUT GOVERNMENT AND SPEND LESS.Which has been the whole point of the Tea Party and Paul Ryan and others on the Right who grasp this since the day Obama took office. It’s a simple point, but doesn’t lend it self to a quick and easy solution. But it’s the only choice.
Bugg (996c34) — 9/19/2010 @ 8:07 amSafire at least atoned for his 1992 vote for Clinton in print, and was calling the president fact-challenged and Hillary a congenital liar in the pages of the New York Times two years later.
Brooks on the other hand, seems to be making a weasel-like effort to avoid the fact that he was suckered by Obama. He’ll jab him occasionally just to maintain his credentials as the Times’ token conservative, but you can tell he has far more enjoyment and puts far more passion into his attacks on the right-wing of the Republican party.
David might has well be in a time warp, where it’s 1978 and he’s a Rockefeller Republican pundit horrified at the Prop 13 anti-property tax movement in California and scared to death all those loathsome Reaganites are going to take over the party and destroy it in 1980. Except that David’s worse, because the RINO pundits of that era were never as stupid as Brooks was when it came to falling for Jimmy Carter.
John (8dd4e7) — 9/19/2010 @ 8:23 amPatterico:
Once as in 3 days ago. And they call the wind Mariah.
But I understand; the party line is: You don’t go to war with the army you want, you go with the Armey you have. Maintaining a reasoned position within the frighted herd can be hazardous to your health and site hits. The conventional wisdom is that no matter what crazy shite COD has come up with over the last 20 years and no matter how much stink she smears on the Republican brand in the next 6 weeks, it doesn’t really matter because American elephants pre-reject that stuff from their banks.
But what’s new is video, and it just lasts and lasts and lasts.
(parenthetical p.s. re: wheelers cat @ 56:
I suspect the 6% are largely under retainer by BP, but in any event: I question whether one is a scientist once one has sold out the scientific method; the number may actually be 100%.)
shooter (32dc25) — 9/19/2010 @ 8:25 amObama humiliated the Supreme Court in front of the nation.
I don’t think the being criticized by a loser such as Obama results in any humiliation. Validation is the more appropriate term.
Cordially…
Rick (7ad7e4) — 9/19/2010 @ 8:40 amColonel not care what
ColonelHaiku (1546ed) — 9/19/2010 @ 8:59 amy’all say token quasiCon
David Our Miss Brooks
wheeler’s cat need to
ColonelHaiku (1546ed) — 9/19/2010 @ 9:03 amwake up and smell cat food bathe
in kitty litter
I’m a TP person. So now the TP gets a bit more MSM attention, much of it still vituperative.
You’d think they all would know by now, the insults are counter-productive to their goals. Are we supposed to care what somebody calls us any more?
jodetoad (7720fb) — 9/19/2010 @ 9:11 amAh, the fake Sufi is back, claiming knowledge and certainty she does not have.
It was that way when she would toss comments out physics.
It was that way when she would yammer about biology.
It was just proven that she is a poseur regarding her supposed Sufi faith.
It’s all about reactive politics. That’s all.
Go away, little person. Get some help. You sound like you need it.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 9/19/2010 @ 9:16 amThe reason I’m not particularly worried about the TPers per se is that I’m so freaking old I remember McCarthyism and the Birchers and the extreme right coalitions that came together around candidates like Goldwater, then later Reagan and most recently Bush; they were always around — now they have a single name.
I remember the Birchers well and remember when they were tossed out of the Republican Party to the extent that any of them got in. You have a creative memory. McCarthy was a drunk and a camera chaser but, you know what ? Some of those people he said were communists really were. He discredited a lot of anti-communists.
Goldwater was philosophically not so far from the tea parties but he was a poor campaigner. Just because the opponent lies about you, doesn’t mean you have to take it. In fact, the crisis we face right now follows a straight line to LBJ. Everything we buy now costs ten times what it cost when Johnson became president. That didn’t have to happen.
Probably the worst thing to happen to this country the past century was Lyndon Johnson and that will become more obvious as the entitlement crisis really gets going. The leftists are still humming Kumbaya.
Mike K (11fb04) — 9/19/2010 @ 9:36 am_________________________________________
He found there was little to no money working that racket from the left side, so, he switched.
Actually, he was merely an example of the following phenomenon:
It’s interesting how the type of behavior — or adjustment in thinking and bias — described above has been observed going back a long time. However, the first part of it isn’t necessarily even accurate:
_________________________________________
Mark (3e3a7c) — 9/19/2010 @ 9:36 amnishi is just worried that the masturbation police will be coming to get her if the Republicans win. She has some problems.
daleyrocks (940075) — 9/19/2010 @ 9:52 amExcellent post #66, Mike K!
ColonelHaiku (1546ed) — 9/19/2010 @ 10:17 amscientists study
that-ku-is-so-you (6c1e87) — 9/19/2010 @ 10:22 amnishi brain, find crazy gene;
free lobotomy!
nishi is right that O’Donnell is a mite loopy I hadn’t heard about the brain mice but that isn’t the point – O’Donnell’s also not an SEIU whore what lurvs some cappings n tradings like Chris Christie fave Mike Castle… what I wonder is where were these passionate O’Donnell fan clubbers when the less-loopy if still flawed Mr. Hayworth was striving to retire Meghan’s cowardly and feckless daddy –
And if we’re going to be nonchalant and or fatalistical about a Coons win I would venture that there’s little question America would be better served if a conservative democrat took Meghan’s daddy’s seat and sent the geriatric coward back to Arizona to spend his dotage with his lovely family. In six years the seat could return to Team R and America’s little senate would be rid of a doddering simpering drooling-on-himself odious coward.
happyfeet (19c1da) — 9/19/2010 @ 10:30 amWell, learn something new everyday. David Brooks is conservative? Who would’da thought!
Jeff Crump (f9f615) — 9/19/2010 @ 10:31 amnish prefer bottle
ColonelHaiku (1546ed) — 9/19/2010 @ 11:14 amin front of her than frontal
lobotomy… no?
Whose david brooks?
And yes, i mean that as a sarcasitc way of saying, i don’t care who he is or what he says. He’s just a pet conservative. Like Coons is a pet in general.
Aaron Worthing (f97997) — 9/19/2010 @ 1:02 pmProbably, ColonelHaiku. It would only confirm Patterico’s suspicions.
SPQR (26be8b) — 9/19/2010 @ 1:25 pm“The GOP has succeeded for 50 years with IQ-baiting and race-baiting…”
What some Dems were saying 47 years ago…
“It is very appropriate that from this cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us time and again down through history. Let us rise to the call for freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”–George Wallace, 1963
Dave Surls (425086) — 9/19/2010 @ 1:57 pm“The GOP has succeeded for 50 years with IQ-baiting
That is the cause of the education bubble. Employers are no longer allowed to use IQ tests or any similar proficiency test to choose employees. Right now, the “IQ baiting” seems to be going on in the left which is probably safe for them now that standards, including grades at Harvard and Yale, have been dumbed down as to be meaningless.
That’s why Women’s Studies graduates are working as lap dancers. The ugly ones are working as dog groomers.
Mike K (11fb04) — 9/19/2010 @ 2:44 pmDr. K., some would suggest that the two professions have similarities.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 9/19/2010 @ 2:49 pmExcellent post. Great thread. Is there anything better than Patterico.com?
DRJ (d43dcd) — 9/19/2010 @ 6:54 pmIt is always amazing how people are unable to see their own affiliations and selves. Without agreeing with one side or another, there are definitely a few issues on both sides of the aisle which all seem to boil down to viewpoint in the end.
party (b81b92) — 9/20/2010 @ 6:31 amSerious fan of the website, lots of your articles have truly helped me out. Awaiting up-dates!
Buy Jerseys (a8de5d) — 6/2/2011 @ 11:02 pmReading David Brooks’ “Bobos in Paradise” is torture. TORTURE. Getting all your hobbyhorses together in one obnoxious book does not a cultural shift make.
air jordan shoes for kids (030836) — 6/20/2011 @ 6:12 pm