dagblog - Comments for "David Brooks Is The Worst Parent In America, Or At Least That's What I'm Going To Assume"

Thanks for the news roundup,

Michael Maiello — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:16:53 +0000

Thanks for the news roundup, AA. We're in the west village. Underground lines, at least! Con-Ed failed us, though. And paide more than $1.2 billion in dividends over the last year. Grrrr!

Back soon, I hope!

Destor: sorry that my

artappraiser — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:48:48 +0000

In reply to Please, keep Brooksie in

Destor: sorry that my suspicions that you lived downtown and lost power were right. As Robert Wright wrote, the charm of losing power really wears off before a full day is over, even in a single family home, much less an apartment complex or a whole area.

Relaying news you might already know; I have NY1 on in the background:

Con Ed says they will have most people with underground lines back this weekend, but most of those with above-ground line problems could have to wait until next weekend or even later.

If you look at the outage map on the Google Crisis Project for the Con Ed area,

http://google.org/crisismap/2012-sandy

you can see how massive the outage damage they have to deal with is; I've read and heard how the powers that be are bringing in workers from elsewhere in the country to help but until yesterday, they couldn't really even get here. And even then, those who lost power in ConEd area have better reason to hope than elsewhere--the other companies have even bigger problesm: 90% of Long Island lost power and NJ is one big disaster area

BTW, lots of people are writing stories, worldwide, about your predicament downtown vs uptown, I rounded several of them up here:

http://dagblog.com/link/south-25th-street-no-lights-and-lots-dead-cellph...

It is being covered on the tube, too.

Transit was really the problem until yesterday, nobody that knows how to run or fix anything could get into Manhattan, they can now. Even gas was running low in the whole tri-state area; they just explained on the tube that Schumer had to have the port reopened so that the gas tankers can refill the trucks to refill the gas stations.

Please, keep Brooksie in

Michael Maiello — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:15:32 +0000

In reply to Pretty much. I keep trying

Please, keep Brooksie in line! I only have internet and power when I go to the office, so it'll be awhile before I blog again.

Pretty much. I keep trying

DF — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:04:09 +0000

In reply to This is what the conservative

Pretty much. I keep trying to convince my mother that this is the case. She was unfortunately swept up in some of the faux Independent-ism of peripheral Tea - not that she would actually support most of these nitwits if she actually came face to face with them. CA, for the most part, has some pretty solid, old-school Howard Jarvis Republicans. They pretty much exist as a bulwark against raising any state taxes, but that game has been in effect here for over three decades.

At any rate, she's fond of the oh-so-insightful "both parties are awful" dichotomy, which I find to be totally obnoxious. It seems like people who deem this to be a profound insight of some kind, but it's really not. The Republicans have completely abandoned the role of the loyal opposition. Furthermore, their policy mixtape still sounds exactly like Dubya's, even after all the colossal failure it brought. We pretty much have one functioning party right now in our two party system.

To return to David Brooks, he seems to think we need to reward this behavior, but supposedly not because he wants to see more of it. Rather, we should do it because it's just pragmatic or some shit.

Good to hear from you after the storm. Hope you don't mind me pinch-hitting for you on Ole Brooksie while you were potentially water-logged.

This is what the conservative

Michael Maiello — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:49:38 +0000

In reply to David Brooks Is The Worst Parent In America, Or At Least That's What I'm Going To Assume

This is what the conservative argument has come down to -- vote for our guy or our other guys in Congress will destroy the country. Basically, you have to vote Republican, no matter what you believe, because Republicans now refuse to tolerate or work with Democrats.

The House is likely to stay

DF — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:40:16 +0000

In reply to Let's put aside for a moment

The House is likely to stay red, which means it's going to be business as usual there. The Senate will likely stay slightly blue. Let's assume that it didn't though. If Romney won and the GOP won control of the senate, they still wouldn't have 60 votes. This would be the opposite of 2009-2010. I think it's pretty clear what kind of agenda a Boehner/Cantor house and a McConnell/Kyl senate would pursue. So, I think the two germane questions in that scenario are:

1. What motivation would Romney have for blocking this agenda?

2. Would senate Dems use the filibuster like the GOP has to block said agenda?

As for question #1, I see no evidence that Romney's personal convictions or political ambitions would contradict the GOP legislative agenda. As for question #2, I have doubts that they would do so. At the very least, I have no good evidence that they would play procedural hardball the way the GOP does. It would be a change in m.o. for them.

Let's put aside for a moment

Peter Schwartz — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 20:45:00 +0000

In reply to David Brooks Is The Worst Parent In America, Or At Least That's What I'm Going To Assume

Let's put aside for a moment that Brooks sort of qualifies this by arguing that the actual policy mix we would end up with would be something close to his preferred center-rightism, which he says would be the case because Romney would have learned the lesson that moderatism wins and that the Tea Party wouldn't be willing to destroy a Republican President.

Brooks sort of hedges in a Romneyesque way: Mitt would get "big things" done, but in a moderate sort of way.

I've had trouble tuning my crystal ball to what a Romney presidency would look like. He would definitely nominate Bork-approved justices up and down the line. That's an easy bone to throw to the right, and they care a lot about it.

Beyond that, I'm having trouble. I guess he could close a few meaningless loopholes no one understands and ballyhoo them as big things. He'd ditch the estate tax. It would be hard for the Democrats, or even the Teabaggers, to resist a 20% tax cut, even if it raised the deficit.

I can't tell, though, whether he'd wag the Tea Party or the TP would wag him. He'll have his eye on four years hence, so he needs to keep the right on his side. Can't afford to have them turn on him. Maybe Ryan would be able to run interference for him on that end.

Some think that a Romney win will rouse the Fighting Democrats to resist all depredations on the safety net and programs for the less well off. I don't know. They strike me as more conciliatory than the right--maybe because they really want to get something done.

Aargh I sometimes torture

tmccarthy0 — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:40:28 +0000

In reply to David Brooks Is The Worst Parent In America, Or At Least That's What I'm Going To Assume

Aargh I sometimes torture myself and watch that train wreck show of complete misogyny. How many men get to speak for women? Oh yes, all the men on Morning Joe even when Mika is sitting right there.

David Brooks is kind of crazy, I called his little column March of the Moderates.. hahaha.. he is so crazy, he seemed like he really believed that all of the sudden moderation would overtake Republican TBag Party and all would be great for America, they would get so many things done together, Mitt and the people he will control. LOLOLOLOL, he and Mark "always wrong" Halperin aren't that different are they. Oh and they all have one thing in common...the math it's not important.

For those of a new

Elusive Trope — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 02:08:01 +0000

In reply to A reflection of the debate in

For those of a new generation, a reflection via Big Time Rush

A reflection of the debate in

Elusive Trope — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 01:54:17 +0000

In reply to Frankly I think it is

A reflection of the debate in Christy's mind