I really do. I heart him, I'm sorry. He sends a shiver up my leg every time I read one of his articles. I see starbursts when I view his image or see his name in headlines.
Or something.
Matt Taibbi makes me happy, even though I sometimes get bummed out reading his moderately depressing and always realistic stuff, because he speaks truth to power. Also, he's a brilliant writer, which helps a lot. Matt tends to capture the way I'm feeling quite frequently, by putting into words what sometimes takes me two solid weeks to formulate coherent thought around.
See? I ended that sentence in a preposition! Matt would never do that.
Anyway.
I have never been a huge fan of David Brooks, mostly because I think he's a total asshole, but also because he needs some new, stylin' glasses. I had those glasses too, Mr. Brooks ... in 1988. Sally Jesse Raphael called and she wants 'em back.
So I took some great pleasure (mwa ha ha ha!) in noticing that Mr. Matt "Motherfuckin' Fantastic" Taibbi quite adeptly eviscerated Mr. David "Idiot with 80s Glasses" Brooks on his blog yesterday. Truly, the only proper word here that can be used is "eviscerated":
e·vis·cer·ate (-vs-rt)
v. e·vis·cer·at·ed, e·vis·cer·at·ing, e·vis·cer·ates
v.tr.
- To remove the entrails of; disembowel.
- To take away a vital or essential part of: a compromise that eviscerated the proposed bill.
This evisceration was such a thing of glowing beauty that I nearly wept at its sheer magnificence.
First, though, let's go into this word that I've been seeing a lot of lately - populism. What does it mean, exactly?
Populism, defined either as an ideology, a political philosophy or a mere type of discourse, is a type of political-social thought which juxtaposes "the people" with "the elites", urging social and political system changes and/or a rhetorical style deployed by members of political or social movements. It is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as "political ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary people's needs and wishes".
Oh, OK. So it's something that's both easy to get behind and something that's inherently accurate in today's political climate, yes?
I know this will come as a huge shock to you, but David Brooks appears to have a problem with populism. Because he thinks it's, like, mean or something. Because it's too "easy" to pick on Wall Street.
It’s easy to see why politicians would be drawn to the populist pose. First, it makes everything so simple. The economic crisis was caused by a complex web of factors, including global imbalances caused by the rise of China. But with the populist narrative, you can just blame Goldman Sachs.
Second, it absolves voters of responsibility for their problems. Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt. With the populist narrative, you can accuse the former and absolve the latter.
This is where I basically thought to myself, "Uhm. David, you're a fucking idiot." But Matt Taibbi didn't think that! Oh, no sirree, Bob! He thought a whole lieu of stuff that made perfect sense, and then responded:
Stuff like this makes me want to scream. If I’m writing about a bank that took a half-billion worth of mortgages where the average amount of equity in the home was less than 1%, and where 58% of the mortgages had no documentation, and then sold those mortgage-backed securities as investment-grade opportunities to pensions and other suckers — and then bet against the same kind of stuff they were enthusiastically selling to other people — is Brooks seriously suggesting that I also have to point out that the Chinese economy was doing well at the time?
Yeah, okay, the rise of China is a factor in the overall decline of the American economy, but it has nothing to do with the Goldman story, which is a specific crime story about a specific bank. If I’m writing about a gang of car thieves, what, we’re supposed to also mention that the endive crop was weak in that part of the country that year? What the fuck? And this whole business about how criticizing Goldman absolves voters — Jesus, how primitive can you get?
Is this guy married? I really have to stop proposing marriage to those liberal folks who just slay me with both their intellect and their wit, but what can I say? It's just so easy to do!
Taibbi goes on to condemn Brooks' line of thinking in this exceptionally pithy faux dialogue:
Using that logic, criticizing anyone for anything is invalid:
ME: Well, Ike Turner was sort of a dick because he used to get high and punch his wife in the face all the time...
BROOKS: But it’s so easy to say that.
ME: It’s easy to say that a guy who punches his wife in the face is a jerk? (Scratching head) Well... I guess you’re right about that. Would you like me to say it while juggling three chainsaws? Would it be harder to say then, and would you have less of a problem with it?
BROOKS: But by criticizing Ike Turner, you’re absolving all the people who do other bad things. Like purse-snatchers in Central Park, and those kids who keyed my Lexus, and all those baseball players who took steroids! Rafael Palmeiro lied to congress! What about them?
ME: Dude, are you okay? Your pupils look dilated.
BROOKS: You’re absolving Mark McGwire! The single-season home run record is a fraud!
ME: (backing away slowly toward the door) Okay, yeah, sure. Listen, I’ll catch up with you later, okay? I’ve got to return some videotapes.
LOL! Tell me that's not the freakin' cat's meow, people! Go ahead, try to lie and tell me it's not! I'll wait.
Matt then rants, very smartly I might add, about Brooks' mistakenly pathetic view of the crimes of Wall Street, and the ensuing collapse of the world financial markets, makes his line of thinking even worse than pessimism. It's a rant that's WAY too good for Daily Kos, so go read it. :) Our rants are, quite frankly, too elementary for my excellent friend, Mr. Taibbi.
I guess that's why he has that job with Rolling Stone and I don't. Makes sense.