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

[Joe Allonby]

He had a column in the Boston Globe Magazine for a long time.
He usually does a short segment on "Only A Game" on NPR every Saturday
that is insightful, shows a good knowledge of sports, and is often
wicked funny.


On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 3:10 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think Pierce started in sports commentary.
>
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ...and his sports commentary is really funny.
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 7:38 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net> 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 [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] 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.
>>>