Do It Again by Clinton Allen and Wesley Schrock

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BROOKS BROTHERS! It was all merely a joke, David Brooks has now said. But what near Brooks' slick brothers?

FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 2004

BROOKS BROTHERS: Was it kooky and crazy for people to call up that neocons might want to "move into Syria?" Merely this past Wednesday night, Richard Perle appeared on Charlie Rose, and the Prince of Darkness made it sound like Damascus might be advanced on this weekend (text below). Only David Brooks took a different view; to Brooks, people who thought that neocons might want to "move into Syria" were simply a bunch of crazy "full-mooners." And it got much worse than that. According to Brooks, people who had such crazy ideas were surely just hunting down Jews.

How horrid was Brooks' column this Monday? If yous want to exist fair to Brooks—and nosotros recommend fairness—we suggest that you read his two/21/03 piece for the on-line Daily Standard. In that post, Brooks worried that anti-Semitism was playing a role in criticism of Bush Iraq policy. Some of his specific complaints that solar day had the flavor of scenes from Woody Allen films, in which Allen mocks his own hyper-sensitivity with regard to anti-Semitism. But Brooks didn't give the impression in this piece that all critics of Iraq must be anti-Semitic. Alas, such restraint was missing from Monday's column. "The whole world" was condign "unhinged," he suggested, as he talked virtually "all these manufactures"—articles which "came in waves"—in which "the total-mooners" expressed the view that (amid other things) the neocon Project for a New American Century was "sort of a Yiddish Trilateral Commission." In his very next paragraph, Brooks conspicuously said that Wesley Clark was merely a kooky total-mooner too. But then, with "all these articles" coming "in waves," who among Bush-league critics wasn't?

How inane was Brooks' Times column? In the past 2 days, we've focussed on his dissembling citation of a crackpot, porno spider web site. But how inane were his overall claims? Most bizarre was an obvious insinuation by Brooks—the suggestion that it was kooky to think that neocons influenced Bush Admin policy. Brooks heaped abuse on the critics:

BROOKS: The full-mooners fixated on a think tank called the Projection for the New American Century, which has a staff of v and issues memos on foreign policy. To hear these people describe it, PNAC is sort of a Yiddish Trilateral Commission, the nexus of the sprawling neocon tentacles.

Nosotros'd sit around the [Weekly Standard] guffawing at the ludicrous stories that kept sprouting, merely belief in shadowy neocon influence has now hardened into common knowledge.

Pitiful, isn't it? Brooks makes information technology sound like Bush's critics were weirdly "fixated" on a meaningless think tank. He fails to note that PNAC'south original members are at present major forces in the Admin—men who clearly did have influence on the Bush Admin'southward policy (encounter item below). Brooks makes it sound like belief in "shadowy neocon influence" stamps yous as some kind of a nut. But what is "shadowy" about the influence exerted by a president's high-ranking officials? Any one thinks of Paul Wolfowitz or Dick Cheney, they surely take influenced this president's policy. What sort of president would pick a vice-president, engage a Defense Department, then swear to resist all their views?

Readers, any one thinks of Wolfowitz's views, he has clearly "influenced" Bush Admin policy. So the identity of the "full-mooner" is clear—the full-mooner here is clearly David Brooks. Luckily, people complained about Brooks' piece, and the scribe has now issued an artful explanation. (We'll offering the full text below.)

What is Brooks' explanation? In part, the scribe was just joking in his column, he says, adopting the standard Limbaughian dodge. And, afterward tortured accounts of what he really was saying, Brooks offers another sweetness dodge. "I am yet on the learning bend here," he says, explaining the "incredibly stupid" aspects of his column. Still on the learning curve! Did the New York Times know, when they hired this man, that he was just a pup cub reporter? Does the NewsHour know, when they air him each week, how much he still has to larn? Indeed, information technology's amazing how far Brooks has gone in the "press corps" while learning the basics of his profession! Who knew? Who knew that you shouldn't brand sweeping insinuations about "the whole world" while "joking" about anti-Semites, Jews and full-mooners? Who knew that you shouldn't drag Wesley Clark's sterling name all through such a pure porno mess?

Was Brooks' column just a mistake—a stupid failed joke? In fact, many aspects of Brooks' column mirror the work of conservative brethren, slimy men who have slimed dissenters over the past several years. In his ugly insinuations almost Bush-league's critics, David Brooks has a long list of brothers. For case, but a few days before the Brooks piece appeared, Jowl Mowbray held forth in the National Review—and the slimy fellow seemed to be reading from the same "joke-book" Brooks would employ. Try to believe that he said really it—and that no one in the press, except Josh Marshall, has spoken up in protest:

MOWBRAY: Discussing the Iraq war with the Washington Post last week, former General Anthony Zinni took the path chosen by so many anti-Semites: he blamed it on the Jews.

Neither President Bush-league nor Vice-President Cheney—nor for that thing Zinni's quondam friend, Secretary of Land Colin Powell—was to blame. It was the Jews. They "captured" both Bush and Cheney, and Powell was merely being a "good soldier."

Technically, the old head of the Fundamental Command in the Middle East didn't say "Jews." He instead used a term that has become a new favorite for anti-Semites: "neoconservatives." As the name implies, "neoconservative" was originally meant to denote someone who is a newcomer to the right. In the 90's, many people self-identified themselves as "neocons," but today that term has become synonymous with "Jews."

Disgraceful, isn't information technology? And deeply repellent. Mowbray, of course, is the pimple-faced, sophomoric little beau the Review has hired because he'll recite every script. But it's adequately clear that the callow little guy was reading from Joe McCarthy'southward old joke volume. And so was Brooks, we're sorry to report. General Zinni's an anti-Semite, Mowbray said—but then is Full general Clark, Brooks quickly implied (not realizing he was doing so, of course). And then practise the slimy boys of the contemporary pseudo-right stuff their pockets full of cash, trashing generals who cartel to dissent and trashing your soapbox as they exercise so. If readers complain, they but say they were simply joking. "I am nevertheless on the learning curve," ane of them says.

Yep! It's hard to know why Gail Collins put Brooks' total-moonery into the Times. Simply we'd like to offering one terminal note on a blueprint Brooks' piece evidently furthered. Permit'south go back to an early passage in his Times piece, in which he cited a source that had him bad troubled. Where could anti-Semitic full-mooners exist found? Repulsively, Brooks named a source:

BROOKS: Exercise you ever get the sense the whole globe is becoming unhinged from reality? I started feeling that way awhile ago, when I was still working for The Weekly Standard and all these articles began actualization near how Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, Bill Kristol and a bunch of "neoconservatives" at the magazine had taken over U.Southward. foreign policy.

Theories about the tightly knit neocon cabal came in waves. One twenty-four hour period you read that neocons were pushing plans to finish off Iraq and movement into Syrian arab republic. Web sites appeared detailing neocon conspiracies; my favorite described a neocon outing organized by Dick Cheney to hunt for humans.

As nosotros have seen, that Cheney-organized human chase came from a crackpot, porno spider web site. It had cypher to do with attacks on conservatives. In paragraph two, David Brooks named a source. And he lied in your face when he did it.

Simply for today, we'll fail to ask why editor Collins waved such dementia into print. Only when David Brooks cited this ludicrous source, he was observing a familiar pattern. Speaking of those human hunts, how far are our pseudo-con killers willing to search to offering examples of crackpot Bush-hatred? Let'due south recall a few slick examples over their by lovely year.

How far will Brooks' brothers hunt for Bush-haters? Back in June, Byron York went deep in the woods. Eager to savage those troubling Bush-haters, he pretended that a crackpot book (a book you've never heard mentioned, before or since) was actually outselling Ivins and Franken! This gave York (and Rich Lowry) a take a chance to vent well-nigh all the Bush-league-hatred. The crackpot Bush-league-haters were all around united states of america, they said. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/22/03.

How far will the pseudo-con homo hunt become? Soon afterwards September 11, Michelle Malkin was then eager to brutal the (non-existent) America-hating left that she was willing to beat on a loftier school child for something he said in a local paper! Unable to find real America-haters, Malkin conducted a man hunt. When she finally found her prey, it turned out he was cutting gym class. How far will they go to track their prey? See THE DAILY HOWLER, 9/25/01.

Just final month, moveon.org conducted a competition to make 30-second anti-Bush-league ads. Anyone in the land could enter. Ii entries (out of 1500) went absurdly over the top. At the RNC, Ed Gillespie began to boo-hoo-hoo, securely troubled by the entries. Who sent in the entries? Some meaningless schlub! Wolf Blitzer at present flogs them on television.

And now, David Brooks takes the next step. He wanted to say that Bush's critics surely must be anti-Semites. So he took himself to a crackpot web site and pretended that it was attacking conservatives. For reasons only she can embrace, Gail Collins put his porn into print.

Yep, the Brookses, the Mowbrays, the Malkins and Yorks will go far afield on their own human hunts. They're very eager to fool the rubes, and they're willing to make a full joke of your discourse. They desire to make the public think that critics of Bush are deranged and disturbed. Who are the real America-haters? They'll phone call men similar Zinni and Clark evil names; they'll even beat up on high school sophomores. Gail Collins? She'll put their porn into impress. When complaints come up, they say they were joking.

DAVID BROOKS CAN Explicate THE WHOLE Matter: Daniel Okrent, the crusading "public editor," seems to be spending his time this week mailing out lame excuses past Brooks. Here is Brooks' full statement about his column. Brooks addressed his remarks to Okrent:

BROOKS: For what its [sic] worth, that neo existence short for Jewish was meant equally a joke. Zilch more than. About of the people who get labeled as Neocons are Jewish, so I was simply sort of playing off that.

As for me accusing anybody who accuses neocons of being anti-Semitic, there are a few problems here. Starting time, I wasn't saying anything about people who criticize neocons' ideas. The cavalcade wasn't about that at all. It was about people who imagine there is a shadowy conspiracy behind Bush policy. 2nd, I explicitly say that only a subset of the people who talk most the shadow conspiracy find Jewishness a handy explanation for everything. I have no idea how large a subset that is, but judging from my due east-mail it is out there.

Then I was conscientious not to say that Bush or neocon critics are anti-Semitic. I was careful not to say that all conspiracy theorists are anti-Semitic.

I am all the same on the learning curve here, and I practise realize that mixture of a crack with a serious allegation was incredibly stupid on my part. Please exercise laissez passer along to readers that I'm aware of how foolish I was to write the column in the way I did.

Exit aside the dodge about joking—and go out aside the "learning curve" nonsense. Having left those points to the side, Brooks' substantive claims are but absurd. "I was careful not to say that Bush-league or neocon critics are anti-Semitic?" And: "I was careful non to say that all conspiracy theorists are anti-Semitic?" These claims past Brooks are simply absurd—unless Brooks is just being "Clintonesque."

Was David Brooks "careful not to say that Bush or neocon critics are anti-Semitic?" David Brooks was careful, all correct. You can see how "conscientious" he was in the passage which slimed Wesley Clark:

BROOKS: The full-mooners fixated on a think tank called the Projection for the New American Century, which has a staff of 5 and issues memos on foreign policy. To hear these people draw it, PNAC is sort of a Yiddish Trilateral Committee, the nexus of the sprawling neocon tentacles.

We'd sit around the mag guffawing at the ludicrous stories that kept sprouting, but belief in shadowy neocon influence has now hardened into common knowledge. Wesley Clark, amidst others, cannot go a week without bringing information technology up.

In truth, the people labeled neocons (con is short for "conservative" and neo is short for "Jewish") travel in widely different circles and don't really have much contact with one another.

Brooks was very "conscientious," all right. He was careful to name Clark's name right after the "Yiddish" jibe, and right before proverb that "neocon" means "Jews." And he was careful to link Clark's name with his stupid remarks nigh that "shadowy" influence.

"I was careful not to say that Bush-league or neocon critics are anti-Semitic?" Incredible, isn't it? Brooks' whole column implied but the opposite! Nor did Brooks "explicitly say that but a subset of the people who talk about the shadow conspiracy detect Jewishness a handy caption for everything." That statement by Brooks is baldly inaccurate. Here'south what he really said, two-thirds of the manner through his column:

BROOKS: [T]here are apparently millions of people who cling to the notion that the earth is controlled by well-organized and malevolent forces. And for a subset of these people, Jews are a handy explanation for everything.

What did David Brooks actually say? He really said that anti-Semites are a subset of conspiracy theorists, not that they're a (peradventure small) subset of neocon critics. And he said this fairly late in his column—after implying, once again and again, the critics of the neoconservatives were driven by hatred of Jews.

Brooks' e-postal service to Okrent is another bad joke. But Okrent was eager to mail it on out. Sadly, people like Collins and Okrent don't really care. Guess what, readers? They respond to one thing—loudmouth ability.

PERLE Earlier ROSE: According to Brooks, it was silly to think that neocons might perhaps want to "finish off Republic of iraq and movement into Syria." Why, you had to exist a full-mooner to call up information technology! Or, of grade, you were just a Jew-hater. Just hither's part of what Richard Perle told Charlie Rose only this past Wed nighttime:

ROSE (1/7/04): I don't run into any evidence that Bashar Assad is quivering in his boots worrying that subsequently Baghdad, Damascus is next.

PERLE: Well, he should be quivering in his boots.

ROSE: He should?

PERLE: Yeah!

ROSE: Why should he? The Bush administration is not about to exercise this again, because information technology has caused as well much, too much problem [sic] and there are as well many other priorities.

PERLE: Well in fact I think nosotros have now demonstrated that nosotros are not only capable of doing this, we did it in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan and Republic of iraq, but nosotros're ready to do information technology once more. And if Bashar Assad believes he'due south immune, he's inviolable, it can't happen here, he may exist in for a rude surprise.

Gee! Why would anyone think that Perle might want to "motion into Syrian arab republic?" "There is a whole range of options," he said moments subsequently, "and one of them is irresolute that regime."

Readers, you might approve of Perle'due south views, or you might call back they're lacking. But many neocons did seem to exist thinking about moving by Iraq into Syria. It didn't take a full-mooner to think it—nor did yous have to be anti-Semitic. There's simply i full-mooner here: David Brooks. Why in the globe would someone like Collins put his ugly cant into print?

THE Niggling THINK-TANK THAT COULD: How big a full-mooner is David Brooks? Call back that lilliputian call back-tank, PNAC—the tiny little, meaningless call up-tank that the "full-mooners" were "fixating" on? Absent-mindedly, Brooks forgot to say who belonged to that retrieve-tank. Only here's a brief note from Brooks' paper about a alphabetic character the little think-tank once sent:

NEW YORK TIMES (12/3/01): Following are excerpts from a 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton from the Projection for the New American Century urging the removal of President Saddam Hussein from power in Republic of iraq. Among the signers were Donald H. Rumsfeld, Paul D. Wolfowitz and R. James Woolsey.

". . . information technology ways removing Saddam Hussein and his authorities from ability. That at present needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

"We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your administration's attending to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam'southward government from power. This will crave a full complement of diplomatic, political and war machine efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties of implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to practice so are far greater."

That'south how the item appeared in the paper. The editing is the NYT's, not ours.

PNAC's advice might have been good, or it might have been bad. But why did people "fixate" on that piffling call up-tank? Duh! Because people like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were its members! Practise you really think it's strange to believe that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz "influenced" policy? David Brooks wants yous thinking it'south strange; indeed, he wants you to recall the idea is so strange that y'all accept to exist anti-Semitic to believe it. Why on earth—why, tell us why—did Gail Collin put such garbage into print?

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Source: http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh010904.shtml

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