;)
The Commentariat -- Dec. 20, 2012 ...
... The Last Full Day in the History of the Earth. (Pay absolutely no attention to these pointy-headed NASA scientists.) ...
... NEW. Building on this theme, my column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "Boola Boola, Professor Brooks." It's an "exclusive"! ...
... Also NEW, you won't want to miss Matt Taibbi's take on David Brooks' ascension to the halls of academe.
Cliff Notes
David Espo & Ben Feller of the AP: "Fiscal cliff talks at a partisan standoff, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner swapped barbed political charges on Wednesday yet carefully left room for further negotiations on an elusive deal to head off year-end tax increases and spending cuts that threaten the national economy. Republicans should 'peel off the war paint' and take the deal he's offering, Obama said sharply at the White House.... But he drew a quick retort from Boehner when the White House threatened to veto a fallback bill drafted by House Republicans that would prevent tax increases for all but million-dollar earners. The president will bear responsibility for 'the largest tax increase in history' if he makes good on that threat, the Ohio Republican declared."
Tomorrow, the House will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American -- 99.81 percent of the American people. Then the president will have a decision to make. He can call on the Senate Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history. -- House Speaker John Boehner
... Greg Sargent, and others, translate Boehner's remark as "Whee! It's over the cliff we go." ...
... ** Jonathan Chait: "What all this shows, again, is how much easier a deal gets in January. Once the Bush tax cuts for the rich have expired, then Obama doesn't need to bargain for the revenue, and Republicans don't need to vote to 'give' it to him.... In theory, this ought to be unnecessary. Everybody knows what happens in January.... But we are not dealing with rational people here. We are dealing with House Republicans." ...
... Markos Moulitsas: "You see, Obama had drawn a line in the sand, and then -- to no one's surprise -- ended up capitulating on everything he said he'd never capitulate on.... Not only is [conceding to Republicans] brain dead stupid..., but also betrays his own vice president and congressional caucus -- which had promised several times that Social Security (among other things) was off the table.... Obama wasn't elected to play nice with Republicans. He was elected to lead our nation and improve the lives of its citizens."
The Sociopath's Guide to Fiscal Policy. Zeke Miller of BuzzFeed: When the government owes less because of low interest rates, Republicans call that "savings" if it's in their proposed budget, but call it "not-savings" if it's in Obama's.
The other day, when Paul Krugman was waffling, I urged him to "go over the edge." He has: "... all of a sudden it's feeling a lot like 2011 again, with the president negotiating with himself while the other side enjoys the process. So Obama needs to draw a line right now: no further concessions. None. He's already given too much. Yes, this probably means going over the cliff. So be it: it's less bad than the alternative."
** Robert Kuttner of American Prospect: "Once again, President Obama seems to be on the verge of folding a winning hand.... Especially foolish is the cut in Social Security benefits, disguised as a change in the cost-of-living adjustment formula.... The proposed change will save only $122 billion over ten years, but it will significantly cut benefits for the elderly.... It's unconscionable to cut Social Security at all when then president is proposing to reduce the proposed taxes on the wealthiest by $400 billion -- more than three times the savings of the planned cuts in Social Security.... This promises to be an epic showdown. We will soon learn what Obama, the progressive community, and congressional Democrats are made of."
Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "The White House has gone to great lengths to stress one thing in response to the backlash against the unforced error of throwing Social Security into the fiscal cliff curb: They'll just reduce benefits for some people on Social Security, not all of them.... This does some pretty damaging things.... First, it pits certain Social Security recipients against others.... Most of the people on Social Security are exceedingly vulnerable.... So how will the administration decide who's most vulnerable when almost half of Social Security recipients couldn't live without it? How do they decide which of these people deserve to be spared the cuts, and which don't?"
Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Religious leaders across the country this week vowed to mobilize their congregants to push for gun control legislation and provide the ground support for politicians willing to take on the gun lobby, saying the time has come for action beyond praying and comforting the families of those killed. A group of clergy members, representing mainline and evangelical Protestants, Catholics, Jews and Muslims, plans to lead off the campaign in front of the Washington National Cathedral at an event on Friday timed to mark the moment a week before when a young gunman opened fire in a school in Newtown, Conn." ...
... The Very Rev. Gary Hall, Dean of the National Cathedral, calls for gun control legislation. You can hear the whole sermon here:
... A Note from Right Wing World.* As contributor Jerry N. points out, not all clergy are getting with the program. Dr. Richard Land, head of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, a part of the Southern Baptist Convention, is all for arming grade school teachers. (It is worth noting that the ERLC found Dr. Ethics there guilty of plagiarism for lifting the writings of others & passing them off as his own thoughts on his nationally-syndicated ERLC radio show. The ERLC fired Land, but you'll be relieved to know he still has a gig on Fox Radio. *Right Wing World is a long-running comedy series. If by chance the world does not end tomorrow, the series will run in perpetuity.)
The Pursuit of Happiness
It’s very stress relieving. Some people crochet, some people shop, some people shoot guns. -- Chad Knox of Marietta, Ohio, speaking of his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle
I don't want to shoot holes in pieces of paper, I want to watch a watermelon be destroyed.... It's fun and it makes you smile but it's a skill, its own art form. I don't want to make it sound weird, but it's almost like holding a live animal. You've fired the thing, and it's kicked around, and there's the smell.... When I put 20 rounds downrange, I'm like, man, I need a burger, yes! -- Patrick Mason of Las Vegas, Nevada
And some people want to deprive these American citizens of the only way they can think of to have 'stress-relieving' 'fun' and 'smiles' for the sole purpose of saving innocent lives. -- Constant Weader ...
... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "... many owners of military-style semiautomatic rifles ... reject the term 'assault weapon.' ... They use their guns for target practice and hunting small game like rabbits, squirrels and coyotes. They also say that as a self-defense weapon, the AR-15, which is based on the military's M-16 and M-4, has its limits: It cannot be carried in public, and in the home it is potentially less accurate than a shotgun."
Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker: "Those who fight against gun control, actively or passively, with a shrug of helplessness, are dooming more kids to horrible deaths and more parents to unspeakable grief just as surely as are those who fight against pediatric medicine or childhood vaccination."
Enough with Abstractions; It's the Guns. New York Times Editors: "Republicans say they want to end the violence, but have been mostly trying to end the discussion.... Mr. Obama played into [the Republican] argument on Wednesday, talking about the 'culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence' and saying that any actions should begin 'inside the home and inside our hearts.' It is tempting to blame abstractions, and to give in to fatalism...." ...
... President Obama's remarks in the Brady Briefing Room yesterday (that's "Brady" as in the "Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act" a/k/a the Brady bill, named for Jim Brady, President Ronald Reagan's press secretary who was severely wounded in an assassination attempt on President Reagan, also shot in the assault):
The Stupidest Thing the President Said Yesterday: I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms.
... ** Fareed Zakaria: other developed countries have the same level as mental illness the U.S. does, and they have cultures that encompass a similar level of violence. Yet they have far fewer gun deaths. "The U.S. gun homicide rate is 30 times that of France or Australia.... The data in social science are rarely this clear. They strongly suggest that we have so much more gun violence than other countries because we have far more permissive laws than others regarding the sale and possession of guns. With 5 percent of the world's population, the United States has 50 percent of the guns.... We do not lack for answers. What we lack in America today is courage."
Peter Wallsten & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "While the NRA devoted most of its national campaign efforts this year to supporting Republicans and opposing President Obama, the group has historically gained its clout in Washington by nurturing close ties to lawmakers in both parties, particularly those from rural areas.... But several recent factors have altered that calculus.... Political battlegrounds have also shifted away from those rural areas to the suburbs, where the NRA holds less sway and there is more appetite for restrictions on guns. And Democrats are looking increasingly at the NRA as an arm of the Republican Party...."
Greg Roumeliotis & Ross Kerber of Reuters: "The $150.1 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund is reviewing its investments in firearm manufacturers.... New York City's pension funds are also reviewing investments and may sell nearly $18 million worth of stock in four companies that manufacture guns and ammunition...."
From the Brady Campaign:
How Low Can You Go? Scam Artists Exploit Newtown Families. Christina Rexrode & Robert Ray of the AP: "The family of Noah Pozner was mourning the 6-year-old, killed in the Newtown school massacre, when outrage compounded their sorrow. Someone they didn't know was soliciting donations in Noah's memory, claiming that they'd send any cards, packages and money collected to his parents and siblings. An official-looking website had been set up, with Noah's name as the address, even including petitions on gun control."
Bryan Jones, in a Monkey Cage post, explains the socio-political dynamics that might make gun control legislation possible now: "If the problem is reconceived, government solutions are within the pale. Just what policy solution might be attached to the problem is unclear, but the lowest hanging fruit (where the gun lobby's policy victories have exceeded the bounds of common sense) include an assault weapons ban, a high-capacity magazine ban, and improved background check procedures for gun purchases."
Robert Rizzuto of The Republican: "Although he once said banning so-called assault weapons fell under the category of issues best left to the states, Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown told The Republican/MassLive.com in an exclusive interview Wednesday that he now supports federal action." Via Jonathan Bernstein.
Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, [and] writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government. -- Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), 1981, speaking on the floor of the Senate during Bork's confirmation proceedings ...
Roll the videotape:
... CW: I generally prefer not to speak ill of the dead before the family has had a chance to mourn (or in this case, even bury him). Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker obviously holds to a different standard: "Robert Bork, who died Wednesday, was an unrepentant reactionary who was on the wrong side of every major legal controversy of the twentieth century. The fifty-eight senators who voted against Bork for confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1987 honored themselves, and the Constitution. In the subsequent quarter-century, Bork devoted himself to proving that his critics were right about him all along." ...
... Update. Like me, Paul Waldman of the American Prospect was rather taken aback by Toobin's lusty attack. "I think it's possible to talk honestly about someone's contributions, and your criticisms of them, without getting needlessly uncivil."
Maggie Haberman of Politico: "The [winger] William Kristol-founded conservative Emergency Committee for Israel says it's launching cable ads starting Thursday slamming Chuck Hagel, the latest in a spate of criticism over the man who's said to top President Barack Obama's list for Secretary of Defense. The spot, which hits Hagel for voting against sanctions on Iran, is an indication of the next phase of attacks on the former lawmaker, whose past stands on Israel have gotten the most attention."
Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post: Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about how to fight the war differently." ...
... Charles Pierce: "We have the wandering Little Petraeus to thank for many things. The fact that this guy clearly had national ambitions, and that only the wandering Little Petraeus may have saved us from a national security apparatus helmed by the half-bright chickenhawk denizens of Neocon Dogpatch, is definitely one of them."
You're Still Paying for Willard. Katy Steinmetz of Time: "One of the less scintillating milestones of the 2012 election was marked by the General Services Administration, when Mitt Romney became the first candidate to take advantage of the Presidential Transition Act of 2010.... The law stipulates that the federal government will provide certain resources to non-incumbent candidates after their nominating convention. The GSA says final costs are still being tabulated, but the initial estimated cost for Romney's pre-transition phase is around $8.9 million."
Inside Job. Ian Austin of the New York Times: on arrests in The Great Maple Syrup Heist & the OPEC-like Canadian cartel the Maple Syrup Gang burglarized.
Boola, Boola, Professor Brooks. Joe Coscarelli of New York: New York Times columnist David Brooks "will be teaching a class [at Yale] in the spring titled just plain 'Humility.' According to its description, the course promises to explore 'The premise that human beings are blessed with many talents but are also burdened by sinfulness, ignorance, and weakness,' as demonstrated by men such as Moses, Homer, and 'others,' like maybe Paul Krugman.... And if pleasing one's parents with a brand-name professor isn't reason enough to sign up, the class is listed as having 'no regular final examination.'"
News Ledes
New York Times: "Bernard L. Madoff's brother, Peter B. Madoff, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday for his role in enabling the extensive fraud that swindled investors out of billions of dollars."
Market Watch: "The U.S. economy grew more quickly than previously stated in the July-to-September quarter due to stronger trade, faster health-care spending and increased local government construction, the Commerce Department estimated Thursday. The Commerce Department said third-quarter gross domestic product grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.1% in the third quarter...."
Reuters: "The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid rose last week, putting them back at the lower end of their pre-storm range and suggesting job growth remains moderate. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 361,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's figure was revised to show 1,000 more applications than previously reported."
AP: "Members of the Senate and House foreign affairs committees on Thursday were to question Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who is in charge of policy, and Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, who is in charge of management, at back-to-back congressional hearings on the September 11 Benghazi attack on four Americans." CW: the Washington Post has live coverage of the hearings on its front page. At about 8:30 am ET, Committee Chairman John Kerry was droning away. C-SPAN live coverage is here. At 8:35 am, Nides is testifying. ...
... AP: "The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- and possibly the next secretary of state -- says mistakes were made at the State Department in the deadly Sept. 11 assault in Libya, but Congress shares some of the blame." CW: the Grammar Prize for Earliest Delivery of the Classic "Past Exonerative Tense" Clause "Mistakes Were Made" goes to John Kerry (or AP writer Donna Cassata -- it isn't a direct quote.)
New York Times: "The owner of the venerable New York Stock Exchange is in talks to be acquired by an upstart commodities and derivatives trading platform...." CW: and the award for writing Today's Most Artless Sentence goes to the NYT: "... is in talks to be acquired by...."
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Reader Comments (23)
Pelosi response when asked if she thinks Chained CPI is a cut to Social Secutity (from Daily Kos):
"No I don't," consider it a be a benefit cut, she said. "I consider it a strengthening of Social Secutity."
Great, cause I was starting to think that I wasted all my Saturdays this past fall campaigning for President Obama.
While listening to NPR ATC this afternoon, Robert Siegel interviewed Dr. Richard Land, director of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, on whether Friday's school shooting in Newtown, Conn., has changed his views on gun control. Dr. Land's response was 'Gun-Free Zones Are A Fantasy'. It was difficult to force myself to listen to the complete interview. It can be heard here: http://www.npr.org/2012/12/19/167649305/southern-baptist-leader-gun-free-zones-are-a-fantasy
Re Charles Pierce-
..." only the wandering Little Petraeus may have saved us from a national security apparatus helmed by the half-bright chickenhawk denizens of Neocon Dogpatch, is definitely one of them."
Hmmm.....I think perhaps Obama should give Paula Broadwell (I think I got her name right this time) the Medal of Freedom!
@Kate Madison: now you've gone and done it. I do believe you have just provoked a new right-wing conspiracy theory: Paula Broadwell was an Obama operative, foisted upon the noble warrior to throw him off his game, ruin his reputation and deprive him of a run for the presidency against Obama.
The whole Obama plot thing fits in perfectly with your remark yesterday that most men think with their dicks. Now the question is, are you part of the librul conspiracy? Did you advise Obama on how to take Petraeus out of the running? Was all that "Remember the Supremes" stuff a diversionary tactic?
Marie
If perchance the Mayan calendar is just a little off the mark and we do make it to the end of the month, is it possible that what we're seeing in the debt (could we call them "asset" for a change?) talks could be a repeat of the manufactured debt ceiling crisis of only a year and a half ago?
Despite all the theater, that Obama made just enough concessions in fact to get unemployment and the Social Security tax holiday extended but managed to hand the the tough debt issues, excluding Social Security and Medicaid (as I remember) off to a committee that couldn't possibly agree, so of course nothing was done, which may well have been the plan all along. Social Security and Medicaid were not touched and he got re-elected.
The impending cliff--I prefer "bluff"-- means both more revenue and significant mandatory cuts, and as I understand it, the looming sequester exempts Social Security and Medicaid and holds Medicare cuts to 2 percent, which while I don't like it looks better when you compare it with the much larger proposed cuts in the defense/war budget, cuts long past due. And if Medicare could do something sensible like negotiate drug prices, that alone would meet much of Medicare's cost-cutting goal.
Just wondering...if our President is that smart or we that lucky.
If only the Mayan calendar will let us find out. Besides, I want to find out if I got any presents this year.
Oh geez Marie--You have found me out! Even though I am not nearly as hot for Davey Petraeus as you are, I think the man definitely deserves to be in the running as the Republikan nominee for Prezident in 2016. Besides, he would be a good opponent for Hillary--since he is a betraying huzband, and she has been PEtrayed (oops, I mean BEtrayed) by her own life partner.
Truth to tell, or whatever, I am an admirer of Jill Kelly, the ex-porn star and "condiment" of Davey! She is soooo cute. And her sister is even better.
Now please do not delete me, because I said that horrible truth: that most men think with their dicks. Remember, pu-leez, that my husband, the shrink, agrees with me!
P.S. I am still worried about the Supremes! Really. Even more so about Chuck Hagel--who would be an excellent Secy. of Defense. But AIPAC hates him.
I was a bit taken aback by your being taken aback at Toobin's accurate summing up of the public life of Robert Bork. Nowhere in his article did Toobin mention that Bork liked to torture kittens (as far as I know, he did not) or that he regularly invaded the nation's lunch counters in order to harass black youths enjoying a grilled cheese sandwich (as far as I know, he did not). Toobin described Bork as NASA might describe a rogue asteroid: Among all of the bad choices that America has made over the last 30 years, at least the nation was spared one. Bork was an intemperate man, a Nino Scalia on steroids with a good alarm clock. Why should we gussy up his eulogy?
@ Jack Mahoney: I thought the Toobin piece was terrific; that's why I linked it. But it seems respectful to the family -- who are not responsible for the bad behavior of the recently-departed -- to wait till the body is cold before severing the head & posting it atop the public gate.
Think of it this way: if you knew a kid who tortured small animals & went off to war to "kill some [racial epithet]," would you tell his mother at the wake that her dead son was a colossal jackass? Probably not.
(Perhaps if I had been more respectful, I would have waited a day or two to link Toobin's post. But I'm not that prissy. And I would rather let readers decide what to read; it ain't up to me. My job is to let 'em know what's out there & might be of interest.)
Marie
"Just wondering...if our President is that smart or we that lucky." Ken is the one wondering here as am I yet it seems inconceivable that Obama would allow himself to be hoodwinked once again by "those folks on the other side of the aisle." From how I understand all this I say let's go over that small slope and fix the tax stuff in the new year. That ole Cliff Fiscal, man about town who scares the pants off of righties and lefties, will do anything to preserve the rich their riches and allow the little people to cough up more than they are able.
I'm with Jack: Bork made his bed, why should we "gussy" up how he laid in it.
I'm so excited! To think I might run into Brooks at some restaurant in New Haven or bump into him on the street just makes me tingle all over. Maybe I can even audit his classes on "humility"––does this mean he won't have time to do his weekly column?
As always, thanks Marie. I should have considered that actions speak louder, and you did link the article.
As for Bork's family, I imagine that those who loved him couldn't care less what Toobin, you, or I think, and that those who were chagrined to be linked to him are quietly relieved.
As Oscar Wilde said, "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
Re: My private thoughts; @Kate and Marie, Okiedokie; I don't mind that you write most men think with their dicks; I'd rather be a thinking dick than non-thinking dick. Your sentence may be based on, say three thousand years of recorded history; but it is still just an opinion.
If I was to write "most women think with their pussies"; I think you might take offense.... Or not.
Most men I know and admire know that their dicks are probably lying to them so they don't pay too much attention to what their dicks are whispering in their other ear.
My dick just told me I had better get off to work and if during our day I am forced to decide between what my dick says and what my tiny, little stone age brain suggests I will probably go with my brain.
Love ya, after all where would us men be with you women?
@JJG. You are a charmer I'll say that. Without even seeing you, I'm confident you are much sexier than Marie's general.
The data in Charles Blow's piece in the NYT shows just how truly exceptional America is. "America has more homicides by gun than all of the other high-income O.E.C.D. countries combined".
@JJG: I think perhaps it all starts with the fact that male genitalia is out front and center while female genitalia is hidden and forbidden to explore right from the beginning. Who can blame the many guys whose dicks dictate––it's like having lust always there at your finger tips. By the time puberty rears it's smarmy head the poor boys have a heck of a time making their Johnsons behave, but with maturity comes restraint and intense interest in other passions. This evolution, however, does not occur for many men who for one reason or another retain that Dickiness of youthful past. You are not one of those men nor are the men I know including my mister and my sons and my male friends. So, no, I would not say that "most" men think with their dicks, but many do. One thing I think I am pretty sure of though is that MOST women do not think with their pussies and yes, if you said that I'd probably let out a feline screech. But you really didn't, did you? Can you hear my purrrrrrr?
Yep! Jeff Toobin was spot on, I'm pretty sure it's what went through many minds as most saw the announcement come up on our screens yesterday about the late-not-gonna-be-missed Robert Bork. And, I took Robert Waldman's article to read as not so much "tsk! tsk! Toobin," but, as a bit of gentile piling on!
Oops! Typo alert! Meant 'genteel' not gentile! agggggggggh!
Hmmm eternally self-promoting media whore Our Mister Brooks who plants himself in front of any camera and microphone within the distance covered by an overhand lob of one of his faux sociology tomes, this moralistic, finger-wagging bloviator who declaims regularly on subjects upon which he is less informed than the dimmest tree sloth, believing his ineffable insights to be the pride of conservative civilization and himself the savior of same through his habitual employment of anti-hippie homiletics and regular service to high-minded moraliteee, is teaching a class on
H U M I L I T Y!
yeah...
Some enterprising Yalie should record these lectures and distribute them widely as a substitute for ipecac.
Can't wait for the slog through the sagacity elicited during his time with the Bulldog. I can read it now: "Ivy League Students Far More Immoral Than Originally Thought."
A cogent, emotion-free look at the current state of research on gun violence from The New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23026-data-show-how-us-gun-control-will-cut-shooting-deaths.html
@Marie:
Your NY Times Examiner take on Our Mr. Brooks is priceless!
I can only imagine what will go through students' minds when forced to read Brooks' drivel.
And I once thought Yale is a respected university. No more. No mas!
In the Atlantic, Andrew Cohen deconstructs George Will's article on voting rights in the WAPO.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/george-will-gets-almost-everything-wrong-about-voting-rights/266504/
Amazing. Brooks to teach humility to Yalies. How may I ask when all I have read indicates that neither have any familiarity with the concept. I can only assume that someone has just published a study of humility whose conclusions Brooks will proceed to misinterpret and/or distort as usual.
I apologize in advance for this. Though the US has 32 times as many firearm homicides as France or the UK its murder rate is only (?) 4 times as high. Chacun a son gout.
Here's a funky little delicacy (ha) to munch on during your last few hours on earth: Matt Taibbi "Is David Brooks Teaching Humility at Yale?" (Matt is sponsoring a contest for commenters on his article, to come up with their own ideas of history's biggest gasbagging blowhards and their immortal words.)
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/15136-focus-is-david-brooks-teaching-humility-at-yale
Mother Jones has a good article on the Mayan end of the world tomorrow. http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/12/everything-you-wanted-know-about-mayan-apocalypse-were-really-afraid-ask
Apparently, real Mayans are not amused by all of this.
With Yale being the educator of choice for both George W. Shrub and Pat Robertson, my how the mighty have fallen. The Ivies are great for networking and working the hell out of the avalanche of federal dollars they greedily suck up ever year. Some pigs are more equal than others. But Brooks? He is the poster child for least-common-denominator thinking passing itself off as erudition. He and his kind have cost advertisers this viewer years ago. Has he ever added substance to any debate on any subject ever?
Totally on a different subject: why not speak ill of the dead? I'll tell you: the powers that be want you and your attention span of the average tv commercial to lose interest in all the negative toads and their pond scum of ideas. Most folks got a life. They don't have time to rewrite history in a way that says Bork was great except when he wasn't. Bork was a misogynistic, racist who supported classism and white power, just like his pal Reagan. Respect for the dead should be earned. If respect for the dead should be automatic then Reagan, Bork, Joe DiMaggio and chairman Mao are all equal.
Finally, if Paula Broadwell was the nexus of a subversive plot by Democrats to apply the vaginal wrench to the career of Davey P, I can't wait for Tom Robbins to write it up.