Caveat lector

LET’S PLAY SLIMEBALL! Disagree with Bush? Then you’re anti-semitic! So says David Brooks, in an astonishing column:

TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2004

POSTPONEMENT: Because of David Brooks’ astonishing column, we must postpone our Zell Miller series. We’ll bring back “ZELL’S BELLS” on the morrow.

ASTOUNDING: How privileged do the powerful few sometimes feel? David Brooks’ column in today’s New York Times provides an astounding example.

For those who may be living on Mars, let’s provide some background. Paul Wolfowitz—a thoroughly intelligent man—is deputy secretary of defense under Bush. That makes him very important. And Wolfowitz has long favored military action against Iraq; he urged such action on President Clinton in 1998, for example. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Wolfowitz’s long-held view became official Bush Admin policy. Whatever one thinks of the war in Iraq, it would take a special kind of serf not to notice such bone-simple facts.

But Brooks believes in the privilege of class. In BrooksVille, the president decides and the serfs must sit by, offering no comment or reaction. If they dare discuss Wolfowitz and other Admin figures, that means that they must be brought down. And so Brooks devises a brilliant new rule—if the serfs discuss Wolfowitz, they’re just chasing Jews. In today’s column, Brooks crafts a new law, one that’s wickedly great: If you don’t agree with President Bush, that means that you’re anti-semitic.

Like other men of his low, scummy class, Brooks names only one name—Wesley Clark!—but slimes all others by his sweeping accusations. For example, who were the people who said that the Project for the New American Century—a neoconservative think tank to which Wolfowitz belonged—was “sort of a Yiddish Trilateral Commission, the nexus of the sprawling neocon tentacles?” The slimy Brooks is too slick to tell us; he just reports that “the full-mooners” say this. Instead of naming actual names, he complains about things he read on (unnamed) “web sites” and about “lurid stories” in “the Asian press.” But his suggestion that critics are anti-semitic is found all through his astonishing column. Brooks believes in the privilege of class. Does President Bush have an adviser who’s Jewish? If so, serfs must never discuss him.

How bizarre is the world of Brooks’ privileged class? Try to believe that he wrote the following sentence. And try to believe that the Times chose to print it:

BROOKS: In truth, the people labeled neocons (con is short for “conservative” and neo is short for “Jewish”) travel in widely different circles and don’t actually have much contact with one another.

Has American discourse ever been quite so strange? Have major papers ever published such cant? Brooks’ class has always existed, but now a class of Collinses whimpers and hides, too afraid to exercise judgment. If you disagree with Bush, then you’re anti-semitic. As you read today’s column, think of two groups—the privileged class of a man like Brooks, and the cowardly class of Gail Collins.

LET’S BE SPECIFIC: Let’s be clear about what Brooks alleges. According to Brooks, he began to “get the sense the whole world [wa]s becoming unhinged” when “all these articles began appearing about how Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, Bill Kristol and a bunch of ‘neoconservatives’ at the [Weekly Standard] had taken over U.S. foreign policy.” As he continues, Brooks describes “these article” more clearly. According to Brooks, “[t]he full-mooners fixated on a think tank called the Project for the New American Century…To hear these people describe it, PNAC is sort of a Yiddish Trilateral Commission, the nexus of the sprawling neocon tentacles.” Indeed, how corrupt are “these people”—the ones who wrote “all these articles?” As we’ve seen, when they say the word “neo,” they really mean “Jewish.” And make no mistake, “these people” are many in number. “[T]here are apparently millions of people who cling to the notion that the world is controlled by well-organized and malevolent forces. And for a subset of these people, Jews are a handy explanation for everything,” Brooks handily explains.

But who exactly are “these people”—the ones who actually wrote “all these articles?” Brooks doesn’t name a single writer! Beyond that, he doesn’t name a single newspaper; he doesn’t name a single web site! Indeed, what is truly amazing in today’s piece is the way Brooks engages in the very conduct he condemns. Shedding wet tears, Brooks laments the work of those evil Bush critics:

BROOKS: The proliferation of media outlets and the segmentation of society have meant that it’s much easier for people to hive themselves off into like-minded cliques…
And if you can give your foes a collective name—liberals, fundamentalists or neocons—you can rob them of their individual humanity. All inhibitions are removed. You can say anything about them. You get to feed off their villainy and luxuriate in your own contrasting virtue.

Brooks’ downward spiral in the past few years has truly been a thing to see. But this nasty—and deeply stupid—column helps us see, not just Brooks’ decline, but the soul of prehistoric man. Remember: the Enlightenment happened an instant ago. Brooks reverts to a hard-wired part of the brain—to an antique world of kingly privilege. If you disagree with Brooks’ king, then you—a serf—must be suppressed. A millenium ago, the Brookses yelled “witch.” Today he yells “anti-semitic.”

BABBLING BROOKS: It’s almost impossible to comprehend the inanity of Brooks’ presentation. Early on, the privileged princeling boo-hoo-hoos, recalling the wacky things people said in the wake of September 11. Indeed, “the whole world [wa]s becoming unhinged.” Brooksie starts offering examples:

BROOKS: Theories about the tightly knit neocon cabal came in waves. One day you read that neocons were pushing plans to finish off Iraq and move into Syria. Web sites appeared detailing neocon conspiracies; my favorite described a neocon outing organized by Dick Cheney to hunt for humans.

O’REILLY: You know, we’re all together now on the Taliban except for Phil Donahue and a few people who are on the fringe, but 90 percent of Americans are with the president. But then, when this war widens, and it will—

EDWARDS: Yes.

O’REILLY: —and Saddam Hussein comes into play, and maybe Libya and maybe Syria and maybe the Sudan, and maybe even Iran—when all these come into play, are we going to be as united as we are now?

EDWARDS: Oh, I think we will be.

O’REILLY: Really!

EDWARDS: Yeah, I think, I think—

O’REILLY: You guys aren’t going to give Bush a hard time?

EDWARDS: I think that we will be united with the president throughout this war on terrorism, Bill. I absolutely believe that.

OOPS! HE DID IT AGAIN: There the fake, phony man goes again. Try to believe that he typed it:

BROOKS: The proliferation of media outlets and the segmentation of society have meant that it’s much easier for people to hive themselves off into like-minded cliques. Some people live in towns where nobody likes President Bush. Others listen to radio networks where nobody likes Bill Clinton.

In these communities, half-truths get circulated and exaggerated. Dark accusations are believed because it is delicious to believe them. Vince Foster was murdered. The Saudis warned the Bush administration before Sept. 11.

You get to choose your own reality. You get to believe what makes you feel good.

THE MASTER’S OUEVRE: How concerned was Brooks about that Vince Foster crap? In February 1999, he wrote a Newsweek column; in it, he suggested ways that Republicans could move back toward the middle once the Clinton impeachment was over. Here was one possibility:

BROOKS: Pull a Sister Souljah. In 1992 Clinton attacked the rap artist Sister Souljah to prove he was no captive of the cultural left. Republican leaders may try to find some figure to demonize to prove they aren’t captives of the cultural right. This does not mean going after the pro-life movement, as some of the big GOP donors would like. That would be political suicide. Instead it means maybe singling out one of the conspiracy types who accuse Bill Clinton of murdering Vince Foster. Or it might mean picking a fight with some conservative on tolerance toward homosexuality.