Caveat lector

A HUNTER OF MEN! To what “human hunt” did Brooks refer? We hunted down one scribe’s corruption:

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2004

VISIT HIS INCOMPARABLE ARCHIVES: We chose it as our Spin of the Year: If you disagree with President Bush, that means that you’re gripped by irrational anger. Or: If you disagree with President Bush, that means that you’re just a Bush-hater. Now we get to add a new, advanced form: If you disagree with President Bush, that means that you’re anti-semitic! Of course, David Brooks’ repellent class has played games like this through the annals of time. What a shame that we live in an age when the Gail Collinses push their porn into print.

Meanwhile, visit Josh Marshall’s incomparable archives! We strongly suggest that you read Marshall’s take on David Brooks’ repellent column—and on the neatly scripted, forerunner column penned by scripted typist Joel Mowbray. Of course, Brooks and Mowbray are just typing the scripts they’ve been handed by their owners—but they’re eager to make a Big Joke of your discourse. Meanwhile, Collins hides behind her desk—and she puts Brooks’ cant into print.

Be sure to read the Marshall post—and be sure to read Mowbray’s companion confection. In our view, Brooks’ column is so astounding that it deserves to be reviewed in detail. To what did Brooks’ dark piece refer? Incomparably, we’ve examined that question. Did you think you knew how far Brooks had fallen? Examine a hunter of men.

A HUNTER OF MEN: Over at the Weekly Standard, David Brooks and his colleagues were deeply troubled. Indeed, the sensitive fellows had gotten “the sense” that “the whole world was becoming unhinged from reality” (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 1/6/04). As Brooks and his worried companions looked on, “all these articles” began appearing about how “a bunch of ‘neoconservatives’ at the magazine had taken over U.S. foreign policy.” And “all these articles,” of course, were quite anti-semitic! Shivering in revulsion and fear, Brooks describes what his claque saw:

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. The Asian press had the most lurid stories; the European press the most thorough. Every day, it seemed, Le Monde or some deep-thinking German paper would have an expose on the neocon cabal, complete with charts connecting all the conspirators.

Well sir, over here at THE DAILY HOWLER, we couldn’t help wondering who Brooks had in mind. And yes, we were especially curious about that neocon “hunt for humans” which Cheney allegedly ran. (For purposes of Brooks’ slimy work, Dick Cheney is honorarily Jewish.) Of course, we chuckled to see Brooks citing “web sites.” As everyone except Gail Collins must know, you can find anything on the world’s web sites; any grievance you wish to nurse can be profitably nursed in this manner. Are these sites worth discussing in the New York Times? To state the obvious, no, they are not.

But who in the world had dared to suggest that Cheney had gone on a hunt for humans? One reader offered a plausible thought; perhaps this had been a satiric take on the VP’s recent pheasant “hunt” outside Pittsburgh. Of course, there’s no way to know if that is true, since Brooks doesn’t say what he’s talking about. But we craftily ran a Google search, hoping to see what had him so troubled. And yes, our own human hunt was rewarded. A recent post on an Oregon site is almost surely what has D-Brooks frazzled. What sort of post is now so important that the New York Times will flog it this way? Readers, David Brooks has time on his hands. You know what to do; just click here.

The post in question is quite peculiar, of that there can be little doubt. Is the post supposed to be weird fiction? Is it meant to be taken as autobiography? Here at THE HOWLER, we really can’t say. But the tale of Cheney’s human hunt is—how shall we put it?—extremely irregular. So you’ll know, here is the sort of first-person narrative on which David Brooks now wastes your time:

WEB SITE: My father’s sixth grade education had earned him a job as a worm digger for local sport fisherman. By the time I was six years old, however, his pornographic exploitation of my older brother Bill and me had provided enough income to move us into a bigger house nestled in the Michigan sand dunes. My father was right at home there. The tourists and drug dealers who littered the eastern shore of Lake Michigan further supplemented his income by paying for perverse sex with us children. My father also became involved in illicit drug sales.

Soon after we moved, my father was reportedly caught sending kiddie porn through the U.S. Mail. It was a bestiality film of me with my Uncle Sam’s Boxer dog, Buster. My Uncle Bob, also implicated in manufacturing the porn, informed my father of a U.S. Government Defense Intelligence Agency TOP SECRET Project to which he was privy—Project Monarch. This Project Monarch mind control operation was then, as now “recruiting” multigenerational incest abused children with Dissociative Identity Disorder for its “genetic mind control studies”. I was a prime “candidate”, a “chosen one”.

I had learned to read at the young age of four due to my photographic memory, which is the result of DID. Government researchers involved in MK Ultra Project Monarch knew about the photographic memory aspect of MPD, as well as other resultant “super human” characteristics. Visual acuity of an MPD is 44 times greater than that of the average person. My developed and unusually high pain threshold plus compartmentalization of memory were “necessary” for military and covert operations development. Additionally, my sexuality was primitively twisted since infancy. This programming was appealing to perverse politicians who believed they could hide their actions deep within my memory compartments cliniticians [sic] refer to as personalities.

But just for the record, can we make one more point? Before the tale of the “human hunt” ends, another “honorary Jew” has appeared. David Brooks didn’t tell you, of course, because David Brooks is faking you blue. But what other “neocon Jew” runs this hunt? Mental illness can be quite inclusive. Here is another sub-headline:

SUB-HEADLINE: Offtut, Mt. Shasta NWO compound, Bush, Cheney, Clinton, human hunting

Readers, can we make a note about mental illness? Oddball tales like this “human hunt” narrative occur all over the country. They’re heard every day in corner bars. They’re sung every night in deserted storefronts. And today, such tales appear on the web—and fakers like Brooks will exploit them. Just how does the process work? Over at the RNC, an endless “human hunt” occurs. Thigh-rubbing demagogues search the web, looking for nonsense with which to distract you. They’ll find a “lurid tale” about human hunts; they’ll find a dumb ad in a web-based ad contest. Then they’ll hand their garbage to tools like Brooks, and Brooks will pretend to be troubled. Why didn’t Brooks name the “web site” in question? Isn’t the answer to that fairly clear? But try to believe that it really is true: At a time of international peril, corrupted clowns like David Brooks spend their time pimping nonsense like this. Your world is full of life-and-death problems—and Brooks wastes his time on bizarre, disturbed narratives. Do these narratives slime Clinton too? David Brooks knows not to tell you.

May we suggest a productive human hunt—in which we chase down Collins and Brooks, and drive them away from our discourse?

THE PERFECT SOLUTION! BROOKS WAS JUST KIDDING! In this morning’s edition, the Times runs an intriguing mix of letters about Brooks’ column. In truth, we can’t discern how the fourth letter (out of four) relates to the column in question. But the first two letters are surely on-point—although the Times deftly starts with a letter defending Brooks’ right to free expression.

But we couldn’t help chuckling at letter 3. A woman writes from Illinois—and she offers the magic excuse:

LETTER: David Brooks jokes about the term neocon, saying that “con is short for ‘conservative’ and neo is short for ‘Jewish’” (column, Jan. 6). Although I am well aware of a subset of crazies who correlate neoconservatives with Jews because of anti-Semitic feelings, anyone who reads the newspaper can see that there is a powerful group of “new” conservatives in the present administration.

ZELL’S BELLS: Sorry. Zell Miller’s laughable book is too amusing to mix with Brooks. There’s a word for the Brooks/Collins column: repellent. Because his column is so instructive, we’ll stick to David Brooks for a while.

MOORE KIDDING: As we’ve often helpfully noted, Stephen Moore’s org, The Club for Growth, is often confused with The Hair Club for Men. Understandably, this widespread conflation makes Moore very angry. And alas! In this morning’s Post, Howard Kurtz notes that the founder’s frustration has begun boiling over again:

KURTZ: The harshest ad this week is scheduled to debut today in Iowa as part of a $100,000 buy by the conservative Club for Growth. The group, which previously slammed Dean for promising to repeal the Bush tax cuts, uses ridicule in a couple’s conversation.

The man declares, “Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading . . .” His wife picks up the litany: “Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs.”

Stephen Moore, the club’s president, said the “humorous” spot may not hurt Dean with Democratic primary voters. “To us it’s the first general election ad,” he said.