NP- David Brooks, Joe Klein, and the Courtier Press

[David Morris]

Everyone who loves Pierce's Brooks lambasts should know he's following
Driftglass's lead.  Driftglass is an obscure blogger who's years of Brooks
commentary has served as model for Pierce's new regular fun.  And Pierce
would be 1st to admit so.

On Tuesday, July 17, 2012, Monte Davis wrote:

> Charlie Pierce is on a tear this year, as much fun as Mencken at his best.
> He's been honing for months those Brooks-in-the-manor scenes with Moral
> Hazard, the lugubrious Irish setter. Esquire as magazine/site never
> mattered
> much to me, but now his blog is my coffee companion every morning.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org <javascript:;> [mailto:
> owner-pynchon-l at waste.org <javascript:;>] On Behalf
> Of David Morris
> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 4:10 PM
> To: P-list
> Subject: NP- David Brooks, Joe Klein, and the Courtier Press
>
>
> http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/david-brooks-joe-klein-romney-10753130
>
> That we have, in the main, a courtier press bringing us our political news
> every day has been beyond question ever since Tim Crouse blew the whistle
> in
> The Boys on the Bus back in 1973, only to have every problem he identified
> in that book get immeasurably worse after he published it. It is very
> simple
> these days. The primary job of an elite political reporter - Joe Klein of
> Time, say, or David Brooks of The New York Times - is to entertain and to
> comfort the real owners of the country and its politics, to assure them
> from
> time to time that they are really doing the right thing in their
> stewardship
> of what was supposed to be a fractious, unruly self-governing republic. It
> is the elite political reporter's job, upon request, to sing to the real
> owners of the country a pleasant tune in a charming soprano voice. In
> return, they become very important players in the increasingly worthless
> puppet show that the real owners of the country are making out of the
> politics of the country.
>
> [...]
>
> Both Klein and Brooks have taken to the public prints to reassure Willard
> Romney - and, by proxy, all of the country's Willard Romneys - that he is
> being treated so terribly unfairly, darling, by that man in the White House
> who plainly does not know his place. First, we have Brooks, who never saw a
> plutocrat for whom he wouldn't happily serve as a footstool....
>
> ---------------------------
> Romney is going to have to define a vision of modern capitalism. He's going
> to have to separate his vision from the scandals and excesses we've seen
> over the last few years. He needs to define the kind of capitalist he is
> and
> why the country needs his virtues. Let's face it, he's not a heroic
> entrepreneur. He's an efficiency expert. It has been the business of his
> life to take companies that were mediocre and sclerotic and try to make
> them
> efficient and dynamic. It has been his job to be the corporate version of a
> personal trainer: take people who are puffy and self-indulgent and whip
> them
> into shape. That's his selling point: rigor and productivity. If he can
> build a capitalist vision around that, he'll thrive. If not, he's a
> punching
> bag.
> ---------------------------
>
> All those steelworkers, and the people at that paper company, they were
> puffy and self-indulgent - and not hunks of iron-reinforced man-flesh like,
> you know, David Brooks - and that's why none of them have jobs anymore.
> People at the business end of the "system" that so charms David Brooks over
> the canapes know the real score: The "scandals and excesses" are the
> system.
> Take them away, and Romney is clipping coupons back in Michigan.
>
>
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