David Brooks stoops to new lows (NYT editorial)

[Seabiscuit]

David Brooks, one of the right-wing columnists for the "fair and balanced" NY Times, wrote the most jaw-dropping incredible ass-kissing POS praising Wolfowitz in today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/opinion/08brooks.html?hp&oref=login

Giving Wolfowitz His Due
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: March 8, 2005

Let us now praise Paul Wolfowitz. Let us now take another look at the man who has pursued - longer and more forcefully than almost anyone else - the supposedly utopian notion that people across the Muslim world might actually hunger for freedom.

Let us look again at the man who's been vilified by Michael Moore and the rest of the infantile left, who's been condescended to by the people who consider themselves foreign policy grown-ups, and who has become the focus of much anti-Semitism in the world today - the center of a zillion Zionist conspiracy theories, and a hundred zillion clever-Jew-behind-the-scenes calumnies.

It's not necessary to absolve Wolfowitz of all sin or to neglect the postwar screw-ups in Iraq. Historians will figure out who was responsible for what, and Wolfowitz will probably come in for his share of the blame. But with political earthquakes now shaking the Arab world, it's time to step back and observe that over the course of his long career - in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in Central and Eastern Europe, and now in the Middle East - Wolfowitz has always been an ardent champion of freedom. And he has usually played a useful supporting role in making sure that pragmatic, democracy-promoting policies were put in place....

and on and on and on... it just gets worse...

I very rarely subject myself to such tripe, but this one got my dander up, so I sent Mr. Brooks the following e-mail:

"I am appalled and disgusted that you would pay such servile "homage" to the criminal mastermind of the blatant lies and war crimes being carried out by the current administration he helped to assemble. And how dare you label those of us who see through all the smoke screens as "infantile"????"

"Your article typifies the yellow journalism bought and paid for by the criminal cabal currently occupying the White House. It is not journalism at all, but a smear piece consistent with the Rovian propaganda machine."

"A pox on you and on the House of Bush."

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. and this is from the "Liberal" New York Times.

:eyes:

[tsuki]

10. You know you're in a Right Wing Pressroom...

when the only liberal there is the amount of booze in the glass.

[Jacobin]

2. I think he said the same thing after the "fall of Baghdad" (sic)

Let him whoop it up.

Its lots of fun to watch him eat shit a year out from one of these PNAC 'successes'.

[Kikosexy2]

3. Didn't...

like him from the get-go--major Bush-licker--now licking Wolfie's ass! Good for comical reading though and wiping my ass with.

[walldude]

4. Hehe.. yup, bottom of the bird cage with that one... n/t

[gWbush is Mabus]

5. i spit on Wolfowitz (at least on his comb - so he can do his hair)

[Kikosexy2]

6. he uses..

his spit to lube it up with--eeewww!

[Seabiscuit]

7. As for Brooks' smear of Michael Moore, I think Swift said it best:

"When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him."-Jonathan Swift

[oasis]

13. David Brooks definitely falls into that category. I have his photo on file

:dunce:

[FreedomAngel82]

17. So true

Like how they treated Moore, Dean, Kerry. I've never seen people smeared so horribly by people.

[sendero]

8. All of these cheerleaders crack me up..

... now everything that goes wrong in the ME the faults of the Middle Easterners, and everything goes right is the direct result of the actions of our fearless leader.

Yeah, right.

[bunkerbuster1]

9. I emailed Bobo back when he'd told a whopper about Kerry

Bobo repeated some ridiculously out-of-context statement that made it seem like Kerry had supported Bush's Afghanistan strategy and later flip-flopped.

Being the stand-up guy Bobo Brooks can be, he was decent enough to write a retraction...

two weeks later...

after the election.

Fuck him.

[2diagnosis]

11. How is this different from what Bill Richardson is saying?

NBC'S TODAY, 7:10am PST March 7, 2005.

BILL RICHARDSON (D) Gov. New Mexico: Well, it is working. Whether by design, or by accident, it is working. The fact that the President has spoken out, where in the past the US policy has winked at Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, because of their massive security, and we have energy interests there, we have military bases, we kind of said, "OK, it's alright not to be democratic. The President, in talking about freedom and democracy, is sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment that might help us override both Islamic fundamentalism that has formed in that region, and also some of the hatred for our policies of invading Iraq.

[cestpaspossible]

19. Bill Richardson is wrong.

that's your point, right?


I'm not particularly a fan of his.

[2diagnosis]

21. Big Dog, too

nytimes.com
By TODD S. PURDUM

Published: March 9, 2005

Mr. Clinton was more ebullient, noting that the Iraqi elections "went better than anyone could have imagined." In Lebanon, he said, "the Syrians are going to have to get out of there and give the Lebanese their country back, and I think the fact that the Lebanese are in the street demanding it is wonderful."

Asked about huge demonstrations on Tuesday, sponsored by Hezbollah, that demanded just the opposite, Mr. Clinton said: "I find it inconceivable that most Lebanese wouldn't like it if they had their country back. You know, they want their country back and they ought to get it."

http://nytimes.com/2005/03/09/international/middleeast/09assess.html?hp&ex=1110344400&en=e7de1b857c9d8e80&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Kennedy is smoking something- "What's taken place in a number of those countries is enormously constructive," Mr. Kennedy said on Sunday on the ABC News program "This Week." "It's a reflection the president has been involved."

[Seabiscuit]

22. For Kennedy to say that, he must be off the wagon again.

And on one hell of a bender.

Poor sap.

He's got some verbal cajones when he's sober and angry, but when he indulges, he just plain loses it.

[Pepperbelly]

12. Brooks sinks pretty low everytime he sits down to write.

I don't see this as any worse than his usual collection of lies and half-witticisms.

[Seabiscuit]

14. You're undoubtedly right. It's just the first time I ever read his tripe.

[cestpaspossible]

20. And this is the 'genius' who gave us the dominant paradigm

for political analysis in America today: the red vs the blue.

Now that is some in-depth thinking!

[Martin Eden]

15. I like your response to Brooks

Iraq is still a bloody quagmire with an uncertain future, and hacks like Brooks are heralding the January vote as a vindication for the war. I sent a response of my own the other day to the Chicago Tribune, which ran an editorial in a similar vein titled "Um, Could Bush be right?"

In respone to the March 6 Tribune editorial "Um, Could Bush be right?" I have another question: right about what? Bush was wrong about weapons of mass destruction; he was wrong to pull the bait and switch with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein; he badly misjudged the demands of postwar Iraq; and he was wrong to plunge our nation into war on false pretenses. Two years ago if Bush proposed an invasion of Iraq costing 1500 American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in order to elect an Islamic Shiite government with ties to Iran, the answer would have been a resounding no!

Autocratic regimes in the Middle East will not voluntarily relinquish their hold on power. If overthrown, will it be by Western-leaning moderates or by the Islamic radicals who constitute the most organized opposition? Islamic populations see Osama bin Laden as a hero and America as the devil. Given the uncertainty of political developments in these countries, is Bush right to sacrifice so much American blood and treasure to instigate change?

[Seabiscuit]

23. Thanks. I like yours too.

A-hole media whores like that deserve all the negative feedback we can give them, any way we can.

[Seabiscuit]

24. This is a terrible thought, but we all have it in us somewhere...

the thought goes something like: "why don't we just off all those bastards???"

[Martin Eden]

27. Giving way to terrible thoughts

is the hallmark of the bastards we oppose.

Wingnuts have no qualms about torture and "collateral damage" because they have already given way to the terrible thought that the lives of these victims are of little value and therefore can be snuffed out with a clean conscience. This is the kind of mindset that enabled the holocaust and mass murders throughout history.

"Why don't we just off those bastards" is the attitude of some wingnuts towards Iraq. They are so screwed up in their thinking that they can advocate carpet bombing Iraqi cities while at the same time maintaining that this war is justified in order to liberate the very same people they would slaughter.

Such terrible thoughts are natural. The difference between us and them is that our poltical philosphy rejects acting upon those terrible thoughts whereas theirs requires denying that their actions contradict the values they claim to promote.

[Seabiscuit]

29. Well put. You clearly articulated the ruminations behind my post.

[arewenotdemo]

16. David Brooks: Terry Nichols with a degree in journalism

[jpgray]

18. Dave "After This, Therefore Because of This" Brooks is so fucking dumb

And the only person who ever brings up Wolfowitz's Jewishness is YOU Dave! What does he have in this article? Logically bankrupt attributions of Middle Eastern struggles for political justice that have gone on for fucking decades to ONE guy, to Wolfowitz, and relentless snide conflations of criticism of Wolfowitz with anti-Semitism and Zionist conspiracy theory. What a naif, and what a fucking waste of everybody's time.

[LittleClarkie]

25. Entirely too soon to be self-congratulating

but I'm sure they're just trying to make political hay while the sun shines.

To me, and though I want these ME countries to have whatever will make them happy, up to and including us leaving them in peace, and I hope that there is accidental success in the region for their sakes, I'm skeptical. Too soon. The thing ain't done cookin' yet. Bush could still manage to burn it. They've declared premature success before, and later we find as the propaganda is stripped away that it was an utter bloody shambles after all.

Still and all, I pray for those people. I was touched by the Iraqi expatriot man in one NYT photo, crying as he voted.

[Seabiscuit]

26. What "sun shines", pray tell...

I don't see any sun "shining" in Iraq - just ask the average Iraqi, or the average GI, or the average grunt from the "coalition of the willing", or any Italian since the weekend, or most Europeans since the Powell/Bush debacle at the U.N. two years ago, or most Americans by now, for that matter. "Elections"??? GMAFB!!! As if the PNAC sold this illegal war through the whoring MSM in order to have a Shiite majority running Iraq!

OTOH, I like your post.

[woosh]

28. I guess he hasn't read much of Wolfie's stuff

Let us now praise Paul Wolfowitz. Let us now take another look at the man who has pursued - longer and more forcefully than almost anyone else - the supposedly utopian notion that people across the Muslim world might actually hunger for freedom.

[Blue_Tires]

30. are we talking about the same Paul Wolfowitz???

evidently Brooks only knows what he's told from the WH and the Pentagon...

Hell, he might as well fellate Pearle in his next column

We should all save this one; when history finally proves us right about the invasion

[hatrack]

31. Guess ol' Dave isn't watching ongoing events in Lebanon too closely

Looks like Freedom's Not On The March today, what with the old PM returning to his old job. And did he miss that little pep rally the pro-Syrian faction held in Beirut the other day?

Lesson #1 for Whorepundits - Don't praise the day until the sun goes down.

[Spinoza]

32. Today Wolfowitz is full of shit

but, back in the early 80s when we were protesting U.S. support for Ferdinand Marcos (horrible dictator of the Philippines in the 60s and 70s), the only state department official who broke ranks with the Reagen government and denounced Marcos and urged that the U.S. stop supporting him was a young head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff named Paul Wolfowitz. I knew at the time many Filippinos, living in Berkeley, who actually felt gratitude towards Wolfowitz. But at that time he certainly never advocated forcible "regime change" in the Philippines. The people did it themselves.
(Note. this post copied from an earlier post of mine.)