Sure I once was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to Socialist rallies
Learned all the union hymns
Oh! But I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in [pause a nanosecond for applause]
So love me, love me, love me….I’m a liberal

Then he takes off his magic green pants and is forced to leave the playground.

Ironically, I actually was a little warmonger republican who laughed when Carter lost. Then I turned 12.

I was just in a cab in Mumbai and the driver mentioned Brooks’ recent column, in which he totally jacked my entire “radical center” platform.

The cabdriver told me I should totally mess up that bitch, so that’s what I’m going to do as soon as I get back to New York.

David Brooks doesn’t know shit. Not a fucking “green” Army jacket. It’s olive drab, & it’s a BDU.

Sported one myself during the ’60s. Also wore too many buttons on it until I was advised by a maturer (18, 19?) woman that everybody would know I was a “teeny-bopper” if I wore so many buttons.

Ugh. What a tool.

And not a particularly useful tool as he quickly falls apart when applied to any but the lightest housework.

I detect the barest whiff of phoniness from Bobo. Nah. Never mind.

The CONCERN is strong with this one.

Was Hubert Humphery more centrist, compared to George McGovern? He was the Vice President to Lyndon “How many children did you kill today?” Johnson! Not very dirty hippish.

Yeah, if you’re going to concern troll, Brooks, do it right. Don’t hide behind a stereotype because it’s not very convincing.

I’m sitting in Burgers and Cupcakes, reading Imperial Bedrooms (which is fab) and listening to The National on my iPod when I decide to check my Twitter feed on my iPhone. There is a guy I went to high school with and he is trying to convince me to transfer to college in New Hampshire and he has almost convinced me and I read his Tweets regularly. He was tweetering frantically about this column by Brooks so I went to check it out and it makes good sense to me, to be honest. What I’ve learned in my time out in the real world at school this year is that at some point we all have to grow up, the way our parents did, and face the real world. I’d like to be a “good little Liberal” for my whole life too but Brooks really just resonates with me these days.

But the magic jacket-wearing me is nervous about the next few years. I’m afraid my party is going to get stuck in the same old debates that we always lose. First, we’re going to have the same old tax debate.

Wait, “we” is referring to Dems here? Because the “OMG something happened in the world? CUT TAXES!” argument is so old it makes even Brooks look young. Hey, maybe the magic jacket of Democrat thinks we should privatize Social Security, too! And Iran’s still looking might uppity…

bobo fails to mention that not only did he have a magic green jacket in high school, but that he also had a locker full of fine asian fetish porn and firecrackers.

What I’ve learned in my time out in the real world at school

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong.

That is a valiant attempt, fake Center Left Grrl, but there were not enough spelling mistakes or IM shorthand acronyms for me to believe that’s really you.

And if it is really you, I bet the fake American girlfriend I had when I was a kid could still beat up your fake New Hampshire boyfriend.

Shorter “Center Left Grrrl”:

Dear Concern Troll Monthly Forum: You’ll never guess what happened to me last weekend…

Next week, Brooks will claim this was his favorite song back in the 70s, which gives him grounds—as if he didn’t enjoy enough—to speak on behalf of the Heartland.

I used to wear a green Army jacket with political buttons on it — for Hubert Humphrey, Birch Bayh, John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt.

Roosevelt?!! Why not Eugene Debs? Or George Washington? Cincinnatus? HAMMURABI?

I used to wear a green Army jacket with political buttons on it — for Hubert Humphrey, Birch Bayh, John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. I even wore that jacket in my high school yearbook photo

No 1968 SDS green Army jacket ensemble would be complete without an Estes Kefauver button

Cincinnatus, I’ll grant you, but Hammurabi was clearly a teabagger.

a new wave of regional innovation clusters

Fucking shit, what does this kind of crap even mean? Sounds like PORKULUS!!!!

Shorter Bobo: Why do these liberals keep making fun of me? Hey, maybe if I treat them like children, they’ll finally see my wisdom!

And I used to have a magic green FYWP, and too.

Are regional innovation clusters as yummy as peanut clusters?

Fucking shit, what does this kind of crap even mean?

I’m guessing STATES RIGHTS!!! and school vouchers.

Birch Bayh

Maybe I missed something by, you know, not existing until the 90’s, but how is it possible that Indiana had two senators as good as Bayh Sr. and Hartke at the same time?

Dear shitheel,

I have a thought or two about Hubert Humphrey that I’d just love to share with you some dark, cold, moonless night when you’re least expecting it.

Yours very truly,

HST

I have a magic pipe that I load with special greens that makes everything better. Except anything with the by David Brooks.

Maybe I missed something by, you know, not existing until the 90?s, but how is it possible that Indiana had two senators as good as Bayh Sr. and Hartke at the same time?

There had to be some balance against the Nebraska delegation of Roman Hruska and Carl Curtis

Oh, bullroar. He wore the jacket for his yearbook photo. Right. As if. I boycotted my high school commencement ceremony because they wouldn’t let my friend Dave participate unless he shaved off his mustache. Yeah, that’s right, have some salad from the Applebees bar.

Oh. Wait. Oh, jeebus. Maybe I am older than David Brooks. Damn. I picked the wrong decade to quit drinking.

Except anything with the byline David Brooks.

how is it possible that Indiana had two senators as good as Bayh Sr. and Hartke at the same time?,

SShhhhhh! Or else DH Riley will whup on yo’ ass.

And if DH Riley whups on yo ass, you will know it. For the rest of your days. Now I am frightened.

Oh, bullroar.

Were we neighbours in the early ’80s? I didn’t think the word “bullroar” was used anywhere but the block where I grew up. Certainly, I haven’t heard it since my last street hockey game, which I think happened during the Carter administration.

I don’t rightly recollect where I heard “bullroar” first. I like it because it sounds kinda ladylike. Unless you are a man, in which case it is merely polite. But although I have lived near Canadia, I have never lived in it.

at some point we all have to grow up, the way our parents did, and face the real world. I’d like to be a “good little Liberal” for my whole life too but Brooks really just resonates with me these days.

I hate convictions, too. Also?

Maybe I missed something by, you know, not existing until the 90?s, but how is it possible that Indiana had two senators as good as Bayh Sr. and Hartke at the same time?

The same way it was possible for Arkansas to have two senators as good as Dale Bumpers and David Pryor. Look at what we’ve got now: Pryor’s idiot son and Miz Blanche.

Shorter Bobo Brooks:

“I don’t wanna change so you have to!”

659: that is the number of NYT readers who recommended DRIFTGLASS’s letter to Brooks regarding his … magic jacket.

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/opinion/27brooks.html?permid=21#comment21

“regional innovation clusters”

I think that means turds.

I <3 d r i f t g l a s s!

… “but Brooks really just resonates with me these days…”

I’m guessing if this really is a college student, her parents are paying tuition, and rent on her condo, and she has a ca, and a credit card her parents pay every month. And her parents are unhappy that their “Tax Breaks” (stolen from the Social Security Trust Fund) are due to expire.

So an asshole fake-Dem’s idiot opinion “resonates” with her because she might have to go to a cheaper college. Or vocational school, if they’d admit such a dunce.

… and she has a CAR, not ca. whatever a ca is.

659: that is the number of NYT readers who recommended DRIFTGLASS’s letter to Brooks

A recommend isn’t good enough for that letter. I want to inseminate it.

First, I thought “ca” meant “charge account”, but then you covered that. So then, I just decided it was some kind of rich kid thing I didn’t know about because, you know, not a rich kid.

You could have run that bluff, is what I’m saying.

“It’s a magic green jacket. ”

Do you know who else had a magic green jacket?

So an asshole fake-Dem’s idiot opinion “resonates” with her because she might have to go to a cheaper college. Or vocational school, if they’d admit such a dunce.

In point of fact, calling an accomplished writer like Brooks names does not in any way shape or form bolster your argument, whatever you may happen to think of him. Oh and just as an FYI informational tidbit although the school in New Hampshire I may transfer to is technically less expensive than the school I currently attend it’s a definite top tier school (higher ranked in most non-liberal arts fields than the school I attend now in fact) and is either a lateral or maybe even an upward transfer. I’m just at that point in my life where I am beginning to reevaluate some of the values and goals I had as an 18 year old and am deciding I may be interested in going to law school rather than going into the arts. If I do transfer I’ll miss so many of my profs and friends and of course parties at The End of the World (though I could still drive down on weekends sometimes) but like I say, at some point you have to grow up and face the real world which is the real point of Brooks’ column.

regional innovation clusters

Candidate Obama campaigned on fostering these. I guess an example would be the Research Triangle in North Carolina.

Hold on…they didn’t rename D.C. St. Reagansburg? I thought when you name everything around a city after someone, the city name changes by default.

but like I say, at some point you have to grow up and face the real world which is the real point of Brooks’ column.

Let me know how that works out for Brooksie when he does it.

I have magic shoes that make me look 3 inches taller than I am. They’re called platform sandals.

NOTE: my sandals have no party affiliation.

whatever a ca is.

Same as a car, if you’re in Boston.

With a speech impediment.

I’m just at that point in my life where I am beginning to reevaluate some of the values and goals I had as an 18 year old

Greyhound bus stations can be such foreboding places when nobody’s there to greet you.

Wha?? WP just told me:

Error! Please type a comment.

Shit, I knew I should stay the hell away from that wormhole.

As REAL as “in point of fact” is, my working class life is still manifest in the material world and subject to all relevant laws of physics.

at some point you have to grow up and face the real world which is the real point of Brooks’ column.

At your next school, let’s hope you take a Reading Comprehension course because that is not what Brooks’s is saying.

What Bobo is doing is being a condescending sore loser. He finally coming to grips with the fact that Obama has the power to reverse all the wrong-doing of Conservatives — and it fills his pants with POO. Meanwhile, in the real life you think you’ve just woken up to, Obama probably won’t do anything. Why? Because he is a corporatist Democrat.

What is really funny are the suggestions that Bobo gives such as Bush’s tax cuts for the rich; mommy and daddy. Now, Conservatives are up in arms because of deficits, something that means nothing when it comes to dropping bombs on people in a far off land but is an OUTRAGE when it comes to a providing basic, fundamental right to life through health care.

If you think for a second Brooks was ever a liberal, I think you’ve been reading too many Twilight books.

“In point of fact, calling an accomplished writer like Brooks names does not in any way shape or form bolster your argument, whatever you may happen to think of him.”

Is that central to your point? Point of fact, I’m not really interested in debate club right now. I’m here to make POOP jokes.

“I may be interested in going to law school rather than going into the arts.”

While at one time that may have seemed a wise move I am not convinced it still is. You should realize that beyond a certain base level it doesn’t matter how smart you are or even what school you went to. The mere fact that you *transferred* shows that you are not “those sorts of people we hire”.

“at some point you have to grow up and face the real world”

The real world is filled with POOP.

I was a liberal Democrat when I was young.

UGH. Dumb-o-Crap is consistently misspelled throughout this article. It’s like this shit isn’t even edited anymore.

“Now, Conservatives are up in arms because of deficits, something that means nothing when it comes to dropping bombs on people in a far off land”

Example: The bill to continue unemployment insurance so people don’t lose their homes and clog up the homeless shelters was around 150 million. The bill to fund the war in Afghanistan so we can fire multi-million dollar missiles from a predator drone at 10,000 ft on brown people in mud huts was around 50 billion.

Priorities.

Sure, I think the government shouldn’t increase spending in one area without offsetting spending decreases in other areas, but I don’t think you ever need to adjust your budget to offset tax cuts on my rich friends.

And of course, defense spending doesn’t count at all. Freedom isn’t free, especially when we can use a war as an excuse to throw some sick widow out into the street.

Is it manteau vert magique or manteau magique vert?

‘Cause I want to know if you call a BDU a french name will the Dem girls in Savannah like CLG buy one to be cool?

You know, like Mad Men.

Nearly fifty fucking years ago.

I hate convictions, too. Also?

Work harder at destroying the evidence. And have a good alibi.

My trajectory was the opposite of Brooks: started out as a Repubilcan (yeah, yeah, I know, but I can honestly say I wasn’t a far-right yahoo either), got corrupted by life experience and graduate education and became a liberal Democrat socialist-leaner type. Hey, I was young, you know?

I remember when me & David Brooks surrounded the Pentagon and tried to levitate it. Then we hooked up with the rest of the Weather Underground to try to bring an end to imperialism against Vietnam with direct violent action.

I got a little nervous when Brooksie started arguing that America was ripe for a Maoist revolution, and how in place of Mao’s peasants as a substitute for the revolutionary proletariat that American suburbanites would soon be ready to rise up in armed struggle against the cul-de-sac menace.

He disappeared for a while and we got reports that he was seen in battle in Angola, but whatever happened there, it changed him.

When he showed up again, or came back, or whatever, he was different. He was all dressed up like some scholar, but he wasn’t a scholar, he just said a bunch of vapid shit which sounded like what he imagined a social scientist would say.

Nowadays it’s kind of sad, a brave but erratic dissident past buried underneath this establishmentarian facade.

You never know, though — one day it could all break and we hear that he’s occupied the NYT offices with a bunch of New Black Panthers and declaring he won’t leave until all Applebees employees are unionized.

Hey, I was young, you know?

I too have been getting leftier with age, though I never considered myself a Republican even in the pre-Reagan days when some Republicans were relatively sane.

Though I gotta say Brooks’ yoostabee shtick never gets old. It started out old.

Though I gotta say Brooks’ yoostabee shtick never gets old.

If it was good enough for Ronnie, it’s good enough for anybody.

I am proud to report that I was never a Republican of any sort. At age 10, I decided I was a Democrat because the name sounded cooler than “Republican.” About 6 years later, I learned that the actual policy objectives of Democrats matched up with what I already thought. Funny how things work out.

God, he is such a transparent tool.

Does anyone read him seriously, besides conservatives who want to *think* they’re reasonable?

Driftglass invents new job for bobo:

Conservative Establishmentarian Testicle Cozies like David Fucking Brooks

Actually, driftglass’s whole complaint about Brooks sums up to

[citation needed]

Shorter David Brooks: “The problem with this country is that we have two parties when the GOP is sufficient for everyone.”

Though I gotta say Brooks’ yoostabee shtick never gets old.

He polishes it every day.

Does anyone read him seriously, besides conservatives who want to *think* they’re reasonable?

I think conservatives who want to think they are reasonable is a large group. The teabaggers have been making a lot of noise since they crawled out of the ooze last summer, but there aren’t enough of them to elect presidents.

The Republican party’s core constituency must be upper middle class people who are fundamentally decent, but at the same time…intellectually dishonest is meaner than what I want to say, so let’s say, “not introspective”. They don’t want to think that they were born on third; after
all, they’ve “worked hard”. Why should some welfare queen undeserving poor person get their money? I mean, they want poor people to succeed, but maybe the best way to help them is to make it easier for them to be hired at a good job, by say, cutting regulations and taxes.

Then along comes this nice Mr. Brooks, who isn’t like those nasty, yelling people with the misspelled signs at the Tea Party protest, and what do you know? He’s saying exactly what those people need to hear to go on thinking of themselves as fundamentally decent people. Of course they read him. They probably don’t read anything else.

For an especially youthful exhibit, I refer you to CLG, assuming that’s really her.

Democrats apparently carry affirmative action so far that they won’t even eat white rice

I was both eating white rice and laughing while I read this. It’s good nobody else was around, because I’m sure it wasn’t attractive.

I’m sure it wasn’t attractive.

Ahem, Rule 34.

The Republican party’s core constituency must be upper middle class people who are fundamentally decent, but at the same time…intellectually dishonest is meaner than what I want to say, so let’s say, “not introspective”. They don’t want to think that they were born on third; after
all, they’ve “worked hard”. Why should some welfare queen undeserving poor person get their money? I mean, they want poor people to succeed, but maybe the best way to help them is to make it easier for them to be hired at a good job, by say, cutting regulations and taxes.

There was some guy on TPM a while back who described Brooks as the “priest at the capitalist confessional” or something similar. It went like “And up sidles David Brooks, telling the rich white people of the world ‘Ahhhhh, c’mon. You know you love your unearned wealth and your racial privileges and your silly materialism, and (wink, noogie) It’s okaaaay!'”

Best description I’ve ever heard. Applies to most of the NYT not named Krugman, Rich, or Herbert, in fact.

I am proud to report that I was never a Republican of any sort. At age 10, I decided I was a Democrat because the name sounded cooler than “Republican.” About 6 years later, I learned that the actual policy objectives of Democrats matched up with what I already thought. Funny how things work out.

Indeed. We all have our own paths, though. Maybe it took me a little longer than some other folks here, but I think I’ve more than made up for it.

Looking at the buttons on his “magic jacket” tells me he should have felt a strange accompanying hunger for lime Jello.

Looking at the buttons on his “magic jacket” tells me he should have felt a strange accompanying hunger for lime Jello.

It was hot and I was hungry.

Maybe it took me a little longer than some other folks here

No guilt from me. Leftywise, I was sorta born on third base.

Ahem, Rule 34.

That’s a very specific fetish. I would Google it to see if it exists, but I’m ascared…

That’s a very specific fetish.

You have no idea.

…was it short-grain or long-grain white rice?

Though I gotta say Brooks’ yoostabee shtick never gets old.

He polishes it every day.

EWWWW BROOKS MASTURBATING DO NOT WANT.

…was it short-grain or long-grain white rice?

Short-grain. It was the cilantro lime stuff from Chipotle along with some other crap.

I wonder if there’s a Chipotle-eating fetish? I’m sure there is, with those giant burritos…I actually had a bowl, because that’s the way I swing.

Democrats should repeal health care and financial reform, remove all federal regulations on gun dealers, re-criminalize sodomy, deport all illegal immigrants, eliminate the Department of Education and the EPA, withdraw from the United Nations and evict the U.N. from its headquarters in New York City, outlaw the fluoridation of municipal water supplies, and rename Washington, D.C., as St. Reagansburg.

also on brooks’ list for the dems:

– reinsert terri’s feeding tube
– invade cuba to seize elian
– re-nominate bork to fill ginsberg’s seat
– 1, maybe 2 more whitewater investigations

Then I take off the magic green jacket and return to my old center-right self.

Your old self is a Democrat too?

also on brooks’ list for the dems:

Break out the blue dress!

Your old self is a Democrat too?

I laugh because it’s true.

Short-grain.

Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but, um, not my thing.

Break out the blue dress!

It’s time to play Brooks Bukkake!

Break out the blue dress!

…is it a magic blue dress? It’d go so nicely with that magic green jacket.

That jacket of his must still be laced with DMT or something.

we’re going to have the same old tax debate

Ah, Bobo, clueless as ever. There’s no way that shagged-out old meme is going to fly in 2010 – & I don’t think the GOP are going to dump deficits (which they can potentially score some points on) for taxes (which Obama has cut for most voters) as a talking-point.

the president could lay the groundwork for a whopping second-term agenda: tax simplification, entitlement reform, a new wave of regional innovation clusters, a new wave of marriage-friendly tax policies.

Indeed, what gets undecided voters fired up more than a bunch of wonkish voodoo that may or may not even get any real substantial results? Besides, he better get cracking on that “whopping” agenda in the wake of averting The Dirty 30s, Part Two: Post-Industrial Boogaloo while passing the healthcare reform & financial reforms that no other POTUS in most people’s living memory has ever pulled off – despite facing the most pathologically obstructionist Congress in US history … because a weak-ass first term like this one desperately needs the input of an overpaid biter-of-fart-bubbles like Brooks to get it out of the ditch.

Sheesh. He’s the same age I am and he graduated a year later. Though those green army jackets were “fashionable” at the time they weren’t really associated with political affiliation the way they were during the anti-war protests, just like long hair was no longer an anti-war symbol. If I had seen someone wearing buttons for JFK and FDR I’d have to say “WTF?!”

also republicans sagely want to bomb iran and democrats strangely are reluctant on this, so brooks is on to something with his “bomb syria” compromise plan

what america really needs is more couples getting married for the tax incentives

these are precisely the kind of parents who will raise a new generation of heartless randroid automatons to slave away in wall street’s opulent money mines for 7.5 hours a day

also republicans sagely want to bomb iran and democrats strangely are reluctant on this, so brooks is on to something with his “bomb syria” compromise plan

Who’s reluctant? We need to Get Tough and not let other countries Push Us Around and any Good Democrat understands the need to be tough on issues of National Security. I think that Center Left Grrrl is really onto something. Now who wants to read a million or so words about what I’m having for dinner and see some pictures of dogs?

I am proud to report that I was never a Republican of any sort. At age 10, I decided I was a Democrat because the name sounded cooler than “Republican.” About 6 years later, I learned that the actual policy objectives of Democrats matched up with what I already thought. Funny how things work out.

I started out leaning right wing (largely because my interest in politics grew out of my interest in military history). I first discovered that right wingers didn’t live up to their own standards, then gradually discovered that many of those standards were wrong in the first place and that the Dems had more accurate ones. Switched senior year of high school, have never regretted it since.

According to his bio, he graduated high school in 1979. His magic green jacket was pretty much past it’s expiration date for coolness.

The Republican party’s core constituency must be upper middle class people who are fundamentally decent, but at the same time…intellectually dishonest is meaner than what I want to say, so let’s say, “not introspective”. They don’t want to think that they were born on third; after
all, they’ve “worked hard”. Why should some welfare queen undeserving poor person get their money? I mean, they want poor people to succeed, but maybe the best way to help them is to make it easier for them to be hired at a good job, by say, cutting regulations and taxes.

Very true – the GOP base is in the middle and upper middle class, and specifically among the people who work hard not to know the facts because they think their level of living depends on their not knowing them (e.g. on not giving more money to the poor cause they’re afraid if the poor get richer then they’ll get poorer). It’s a frakkin ugly phenomenon.

Which is ironic, because that large suburban middle class is itself largely a product of the New Deal.

Larger Problem

If I had seen someone wearing buttons for JFK and FDR I’d have to say “WTF?!”

Oh come on, you know the liberal hippie kids these days are all rocking Carter and Dukakis buttons next to the more modern hopey-changey ones.

The sad thing is, I believe him. I can imagine him asking his mom to rip his jacket for him and then patch it to look more authentic.

John Cole said
July 29, 2010 at 5:38

INTERBLOG SLAP FIGHT! I’ve been waiting all day for this!

Yeah, and I used to be Brad Pitt’s boyfriend

OMG IS TINTIN GAY?!?!?

INTERBLOG SLAP FIGHT! I’ve been waiting all day for this!

Could you please try to be Serious? I have Important Concerns. Concerns more Important than frivolous liberals could understand I’m beginning to fear.

Oh, and Robert Byrd Is The Real Racist, also.

Closest I ever came to being a Republican was probably being about twelve during Clinton’s second term and consequently finding all the BJ jokes really, really funny.

Larger Problem

Funny they don’t mention that both CBS & Viacom are under the control of Sumner Redstone.

There is a certain group of narcissistic, elitist political writers who think that their clever little musings can somehow pass for reality. Broder, Brooks, Friedman, and lower tier musers such as Megan McArdle are good examples. What they are lacking is a look at reality when it is peeled away from all their intellectual filters. In other words, they would all benefit greatly from dropping acid in order to get a brief look at just how ridiculous they are. Psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, or ayahuasca could also do the trick. Take your choice, but these people somehow missed the ’60’s and they need a good trip.

… intellectually dishonest is meaner than what I want to say, so let’s say, “not introspective”.

I believe the term you are looking for here is either:

“clueless and stubborn”

or

“willfully gullible”

or

“easily maipulated.”

E$ just doing a quick drop-in to give a shout-out to my man Brooksy. Yo, dogg, we don’t always agree but I have to say, straight up, I admire how you can always elevate your game. Respect, you know? Play on, player.

Listen speaking of playing on, do you have any idea how much longer you might be playing on? And do you get to name your own successor? Straight up O.G. like you definitely gets to name his own successor right? Maybe it’s time to recognize your heirs, ya know? Listen homey I’m gonna be out East next week in Boston. We should take in a Sawx game, maybe head out to Sibling Rivalry for a late dinner? I know some things to order off-menu that will knock your Turnbull and Asser socks right off. Don’t tell Yglesias though he’ll wanna tag along.

Also saw my man T-Bone Friedman up there in comments. Gotta give a big shout-out to him. One love, my brother.

As for the rest of you chumps, peace. E$ out.

I was a staunch Republican as a young ‘un, but I made a complete switch before the first time I was old enough to vote in 1982.

What put me on the road to examining politics with a little more scrutiny and a grounding in reality?

Ronald Reagan.

In 1980, I couldn’t see what was so great about him. So I asked the adults, “What’s so great about this guy?”

I could barely get the time of day for daring to ask such a question. From those who deigned to attempt to answer my honest query, it was a lot of condescension and dogma and bullshit. Nothing substantial. (The same kind of answer you get from fawning conservative stooges today.)

I re-evaluated my political beliefs after that, and paid close attention to Ronald Reagan as president.

He was such a douche. And we had no idea how much worse Republicans could get.

Haven’t read the post or the comments but I’d just like to say how much I deeply resent being over a hundred posts behind and I haven’t event gone to bed yet, let alone sleep all night.

Slow down, yer posting too fast.

…There is a certain group of narcissistic, elitist political writers who think that their clever little musings can somehow pass for reality. Broder, Brooks, Friedman, and lower tier musers such as Megan McArdle are good examples…

All of their “musings” should start with the words “Dear Diary:”

Could you please try to be Serious? I have Important Concerns. Concerns more Important than frivolous liberals could understand I’m beginning to fear.

What was that? I was too busy thinking of names for my magical pony Obama will be giving me once Rahm gets out of the way.

You know, John, I like you even though I shouldn’t. Maybe it’s that fucking ridiculous fat cat. Maybe it’s the fact you follow me on Twitter (I am a totally Twitter whore–I will admit it).

No, it’s the cat. I’m pathetic.

In 1979 where I went to high school the only sure-fire cool accessory to a magic green jacket was a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the moon prism button.

Any kid out in the joint smoking area wearing an army jacket with buttons proclaiming the wearer as a epic dork would have gotten his ass beat.

It really explains a lot about bobo.

I bet he had a canadian girlfriend

The closest I ever got to Republicanism was saying Hillary Clinton was an idiot when she got involved in the perennial “violent video games are the tool of the Devil” thing that goes through Congress on slow news days.

Of course, before that, I was saying Joe Lieberman was an idiot for the same, which I think balances my political venom out.

while I’ve always been a leftie, (there was no choice in my family) your comments reminded me of a guy I knew back in the day. His oft repeated comment was; ‘you can be a socalist in your teens, once you grow up you become conservative, anything else is retarded’. He was a dick, so no-one bothered to argue with him. funnily enough, I met him last year, and the capalist dream has taken many shits on his little Tory head. Debated asking him if he still stood by his 20’s bs, but let it go, life is too short.

described Brooks as the “priest at the capitalist confessional”

Ah. The tabernacle where the entire flock lines up to fuck the next generation still in their nappies.

I wonder what bobo’s thoughts are on John Anderson

The 1980 Republican candidate who had a campaign pledge regarding the cornerstone of his proposed economic policy, which was to enact, if elected, a 50 cent per gallon gasoline tax,

He also said in a debate that his biggest regret was voting for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

Then again he introduced an amendment to the constitution that would have said that the United States “devoutly recognizes the authority and law of Jesus Christ, Savior and Ruler of Nations, through whom are bestowed the blessing of almighty god” but of course flipflopped 20 years later when he ran for Pres.

So yeah Shania Law or maybe not, high taxes, and sorry about that whole bearing false witness thing.

He was crushed by the Reaganator and was probably the last non-Reaganist republican to run for Pres. This article* has a quote that Reagan saw Anderson as a liberal and Carter saw Anderson as a conservative and that they both were probably right.

Sounds like bobo’s dream.

*plus a contemporary review of Empire Strikes Back, if you scroll far enough.

I was a conservative Republican when I was young. I used to wear a green Dr. Denton’s suit with dropseat buttons on it — for toilet training. I even wore that suit in my preschool yearbook photo.

It’s a magic green suit. I can put it on today and, suddenly, my bowels shift back to the right. I start thinking like a Republican, feeling a strange accompanying need to shit myself, regardless of my dear mother’s pleadings. I can just hear myself saying “I’ll do it in my pants if I want to!” again, because it’s my shit and you can’t tell me what to do with it.

fixxored

So I sit there in my green jacket, happily chewing on a Twizzler that I probably left in a pocket in 1979,

Hey, wait a minute,,,, this is that same twizzler that Art Chance stuck up his ass onstage while trying out a stooges punk cover song before he m0ved to Alaska, isn’t it? It must be months or years older than 1979!

Why do I keep getting the feeling that “Center Left Grrrl” is, in fact, the DoughyPantload?

I was a liberal before I even knew politics existed, because I grew up in the South and was reading science books in grade school, which meant dealing with “I didn’t come from no monkey” a lot as well as gaining a healthy disrespect for believing shit simply because diddy or maw maw did.

Could you please try to be Serious? I have Important Concerns. Concerns more Important than frivolous liberals could understand I’m beginning to fear.

Cole isn’t really the problem over there, compared to that subset of his commenters who think that any criticism of any government action since January 2009 means you are a PUMA dead-ender who never got over the butthurt that Hillary didn’t win the nomination and don’t you understand how government works and Rahm isn’t going to buy you a pony. Or something.

By comparison, these days, Cole is downright shrill.

Lurking Canadian, clearly you are a Grover Norquist loving Firebagger.

“Maybe it’s that fucking ridiculous fat cat”

You don’t know the half of it. I just lay around here all (fud! now!) day, puttin’ up with (FUD! NOW!) every fuck’n dog he brings in. All I (FUD! NOW GODDAMMIT!) need from him is a little fresh water…….Ah, who am I kiddin? FEED ME NOW MOTHERFUCKER!!!!11!!11!

I wonder what bobo’s thoughts are on John Anderson

He needs to get back together with Yes.

Tunch Cartman?

Thed more I think about Brooksy’s magical green jacket the more it causes me to recall my own magical green jacket of my own lamented youth. In my caseit was not an army jacket, admitedly, but instead a beloved blazer my dad brought home from his club up in Old Wetsbury and which he gave to me when i graduated school and went off to Harvard where I wore it on a nearly quotidian bsis for the better part of a semester.

I recall one day at Harvard waliking around Harvard Squaer with some other Harvard students dicusssing John Harvard and what he might think of this clssa at Harvard compared to Harvard classes of Harvards pasts when a wag suddenly yelled out from behind a statues “I’ve got all ths Harvard LSD why won’t anyboyd fuck me???” I was so upset by the crassness of the ejaculation that I spunaround violenly and heard the nauseating noise of fabric tearing. For you see I had already gained most of the Freshmnan Fifty-Five one gains at Harvard and my beautiful green jacket had ripped!

This is one of only wo tregrets I have about my tme at Harvard, the other, being, that those students around me were not eloquent and analytic sufficiently to aduce prima facie compelling argument s agaist the war, putting me (as the smartest lad in any gieven room) to fomrulate, in these younger and more vulnerable years, the kinds of disheartening but airtight and devestatign pro-war arguments that I became known for. If only there had bee someone as smart as me at Harvard back then to help me better develop my own nascent ratiocinations the couers of history might have been changed. I got an A in the course of History though at Harvard which is like an A plus plsu plus plus anywhgere else so I’m just saying.

Harvard Squaer

Brilliant. Also, too

I used to be a warmongering right-wing hypocrite pervert.

But then I realized I was reading Ayn Rand.

ALTERNATE:

I dreamed I was a warmongering right-wing hypocrite pervert…in my Maidenform bra.

According to his bio, he graduated high school in 1979.

Good Lord. Did he fail a whole bunch of grades? Yeah, I’m saying he looks way older than that.

OMG IS TINTIN GAY?!?!?

And FRENCH!

Do you know who else had a magic green jacket?

Tiger Woods.

On a different note, I was a red-diaper baby attending a high school full of red-diaper babies (graduated ’82, so depending on how many times Bobo was left back, I’m 3 or more years younger than him) and a whole bunch of us wore fatigue jackets. It was a fucking uniform, like jeans and Pro-Keds or Converse (depending on whether you were okay or an asshole, respectively).

a whole bunch of us wore fatigue jackets

Yea. In fact, about the only way you could tell who really needed to wear those was if they were in the photography club or not, since it was the only way they could smuggle the 198 proof alcohol to the cafeteria. For everyone else, it was a fashion statement.

since it was the only way they could smuggle the 198 proof alcohol to the cafeteria

In empty film canisters, yes?

He was born in ’61. He’s just over a month older than my husband! He looks at least a decade older. Obviously being a tool of Satan ages a man.

Obviously being a tool of Satan ages a man.

Or, more likely, being tooled by Satan.

I am proud to report that I was never a Republican of any sort.

I grew up pretty fortunately as a liberal democrat – my grandfather, a Methodist minister no less, still remembered FDR quite well, and had spotted Dick Nixon for the crook he was well before he became President. The “checkers” speech had clued him in.

And Ronald Reagan was such an obvious tool and joke that I didn’t understand why any of my high-school cohorts thought he was any good at all. I still don’t understand it, really.

But like many honky teen males I had a libertarian phrase. “Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” were such validating science fiction. Fortunately I grew out of it when I realized Rand was a sadly dysfunctional misanthrope whose theories fit no universe anywhere close to ours.

In empty film canisters, yes?

But of course! Since they developed their own film in their own make out lair darkroom, they had loads of those.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr, and I came to this thread to shed the nym….

this is what i got out of teh brooks:

blah, blah, blah…So I sit there in my green jacket, happily chewing on a Twizzler that I probably left in a pocket in 1979,…..WHA?!?!?!

So I’m a couple years older than Brooksie. I came to political awareness during Watergate and Viet Nam and the early post-Summer-Of-Love years. All of this in the milieu of a very conservative Navy town (and family). Somehow, through all of that, it was clear to me that the conservatives were full of shit and utterly wrong and the DFHs had some pretty good ideas.

At the same time, it became equally clear to me that the Catholics were equally full of shit although at the time their political message was much more in line with my own thinking.

My question is, how in the FUCK could Brooksie live through all of this and think conservatism had any credibility? I mean, many of my knuckle-dragging cohort in HS turned into Teatards but I knew ‘way back then they were hopeless. What’s his excuse?

He was born in ’61.
Ahh, a young ‘un. Isn’t he cute.