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bottomline
Citizen
Username: Bottomline
Post Number: 139
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 11:21 am: | 
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David Brooks’ column in the times today is very amusing and insightful. My favorite excerpt is:… you have to remember that Republicans have a different relationship to ideas than Democrats. When Democrats open their mouths, they try to say something interesting. If the true thing is obvious and boring, the liberal person will go off and say something original, even if it is completely idiotic. This is how deconstructionism got started.
Republicans are less concerned with displaying their own cleverness. When they actually stumble upon an idea, they are so delighted they regurgitate it over and over again. Where others might favor elaboration, Republicans favor repetition.
While he’s nominally writing about the president, he’s really taking a shot at all manner of political posturing. Very satisfying
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themp
Citizen
Username: Themp
Post Number: 1279
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 11:34 am: |
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"If the true thing is obvious and boring, the liberal person will go off and say something original, even if it is completely idiotic. This is how deconstructionism got started. "
See, I find that so stupid. Different strokes. It's the old slippery slope: all democrats are liberals, all liberals are psuedo-intellectuals, therefore all democrats are like french linguists. I understand that this is an effort at amusing hyperbole, but Brooks is so fundementally bad as a writer (http://mcsweeneys.net/2004/9/20warner.html) that everything he does is heavy handed and laced with a sour hostility which renders it unfunny.
To say that economic policy under Clinton was somehow more ideologically driven than under Bush is absurd. Clinton ran a very pragmatic, pro-Wall street economy. Now we are getting into think tank idiocy.
Here's funny satire:
"I have been critical of President Bush, not because I have actual convictions, but because I have a pathological need to seem reasonable." |
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