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Gilliards House, I promised that if David Brooks stood up li ke a man and held the Bush Administration to account for its criminal in competence twice in a row, Id give him his propers in print, and make h im a gift of a pair of long pants. Well, he has done so on the News Hour last night, portions of which I t ranscribed -- and Im a man of my word. And if you didnt see it, it was one hugely weird teevee-from-an-Alternat e-Universe moment. back when, if a series becalmed itself in the Horse Latitudes o f tripe writing so badly that even the of the wisps of Cotton Candy that passed for plots had melted away, you could always dip into the hack sc reenwriter haversack One Last Time and come up with... and Brooks being outright possessed by the spir it of some kinda Actual, Avenging Journalist! Now it is a little-know fact (because I made it up) that Tom Oliphants d earest friend and constant companion is a gray-and-white bunny rabbit na med for reasons know only to himself and two other living human beings Sniffy the Great. So one possible explanation for his flinchy-to-the-point-of-hysterical pe rformance on The News Hour last night might be that, having been worke d over by White House goons before the show, Oliphant was pushed out ont o the stage while Karl Rove waited in the wings with a pipe-wrench in on e chubby hand and Sniffy the Great in the other, just in case Oliphant n eeded a tune-up. "-edness that the still-unfolding nightmare do wn along the Gulf Coast is NOT a partisan issue. There is an element of fact in his thesis which was simply obliterated by his insistence on buttering blam e for what has happened smoothly and evenly across the entire spacetime continuum. But it was Brooks David Effing Brooks who was considerably less chari table.
Heres a link to the News Hour audio the good stuff starts around timecode 1:20. Emphasis added by me, and all the stuff I have transcrib ed was said by Brooks except where otherwise indicated. First, there was a bit of a history lesson about past American floods/dis asters and how they changed the political landscape. BROOKS: I just think its a huge reaction were about to see. First of a ll, they violated the social fabric which is, in the moments of crisis, you take care of the poor first. Now I think wer e going to see a great decline in public confidence in our institutions . And so I just think this is the ant-9/11, as one of the bloggers writ es. First, of all its a national humiliation to see bodies floating in a ri ver for five days in a major American city. But second, you have to rem ember that this was s delegitimization of institutions. And its not as if this is the first time i n the last three years. This follows Abu Ghraib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligen ce failures, the corporate scandals, the media scandals. Weve had over the past four or five years a whole series of scandals which have sour ed the public mood. Youve seen a rise in the feeling that the coun trys headed in the wrong direction and I think this is the biggest one . And I must say, personally, its the one that reall y says, Hey, it feels like the 70s now. I really think this is so important (as) a cultural moment, like the bla ckouts of 1977. but to reiterate the point I made earlier, which is this is the anti- 9/11. people felt good about the country even though wed been hit on 9/11. Now weve been hit again in a different w ay (and) people feel lousy. And in part that it be cause of the public presentation. In part that is because of the failur e of Bush to understand immediately the shame people felt. Sitting up there on the airplane and looking out the window? And the three days of doing nothing, really, on Bush was terrible. Im angry at the guy, and maybe itll pass for me, but a lot of people, and a lot of Republic ans, uh, are furious right now. Just in narrow political terms, a month ago, Rudy Giuliani would have had trouble getting the Republican nomina tion. Now he could win is a walk if the primary were held soon. Then on the Democratic side youre going to see people like John Edwards talking about poverty, which he had been talking about. Youre goi ng to see people all around the country talking about poverty. To be crystal clear, Brooks is comparing the serial failures of this Admi nistration to the 70s, because he cannot bear to shape his mouth to f orm the words Watergate and Vietnam" and "Bush" in the same oration. And Brooks takes the government to task for its behavior over the last fo ur or five years: In other words the government of the United State has been a clusterfucking menace to the rest of Civilization since the day G eorge Bush was sworn into office. I myself would extend that timeline back into the heart of the reckless, berzerker Kill Bill movement that ended in the impeachment of Clinton at the hands of the same wretched, heartless, irresponsible bastards whose policies Brooks is otherwise so sanguine about. Which also makes one pause to ask, when Brooks mentions as an aside, that , I support his policies quite often --... As he lists the failures and scandals of the Bush White House -- Abu Ghr aib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligence failures, the cor porate scandals, the media scandals one might fairly ask, if you thro w in a general fuck-the-poor mentality, an attempted evisceration of Soc ial Security, outing and active CIA agent for personal pique, the no-bid looting of the Iraqi and American treasure-houses and the hands of the Vice Presidents cronies... And, as my mother always told me, never rake leaves in a glue-suit during a tornado, never get involv ed in a land war in Asia, and do not interrupt David Brooks while he is having what looks an awful lot like a Walter Cronkite/Tet Epiphany. So I now officially retract 4% of what I have written about Brooks in the past. And, yes, if he were on fire, I now would whiz on him to put it o ut. And not to worry: Sniffy was returned to Tom later that evening. As of this writing, Oliphant and rabbit are both doing fine.
A looooong fucking look, becaus e at no real risk to yourself (which we know is just how you like it) yo u have been given a great and rare gift for which others have paid a ter rible price. I'm dead serious when I say that in New Orleans you have been vouchsafed a glimpse into the future of your deepest wettest dreams. Mile after mile after mile of society free from the strictures of Evil Go vernment tamping down on the natural creativity of the people. Where evil, Welfare programs like Social Security that keep people lazy a re eradicated. Where the Bottom Li ne is improved to its logically absurd extreme as expensive redundancies like people have been pared down to nil, salaries have been cut to pove rty-wages, at the same moment the whole Earth depends on just-in-time de livery of every good a service. Where business is finally completely free of all of that meddlesome gover nment interference to pursue its own brand of morality unmolested. Where the Ultimate GOP Reality TV Show plays itself out 24/7 on every cha nnel. so that you can cluck y our tongue, crack open another cold one and mutter about Those people being nothing more than animals. Where an armed citizenry has access to all the guns it needs to protect i tself from those people. A society where no Evil Liberal judges are around to stop the citizenry f rom administering a little rough justice. Because every now and then those people need to be taught a lesson they ll never forget. And that, you despicable maggots, is and always has been the naked face o f your Utopia. Where, apparently, if you re the Owner of a Ship and that Rising Tide comes ripping through, you ll float off to safety and a warm, dry cocktail hour. And if you dont happen to Own a Ship, well isnt that just too fucking b ad. A tinder-dry world where every uptick of the price of oil and every flap of every bird's wing strikes ominous sparks, and yet the fire extinguish ers have all been hocked by you idiots for a few hundred bucks in tax cu ts. And when the light snaps on too suddenly, and the moral roaches who are d elivering your Promised Land of armed, ...
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