Little David Brooks, Five Years Old

Little Bucky Beaver: One Useless Piece O' Crap

David Brooks is a forty-nine-year-old conservative commentator who appears regularly on PBS's oh-so-neutral News Hour With Jim Lehrer, and is a regular columnist via the New York Times. It's a nice gig, considering (in my opinion) that to get it, he helped kill other human beings.

I don't often feel motivated to read Little Davy because of that, and because he's an idiot. He claims to have been a "liberal" until he was 22 (Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge, says Davy was publicly humiliated by Milton Friedman, of all people). But, as he's spent his life as a gleeful pusher of other people's lies, I doubt that's so.

Prior to his current career, he was a hot supporter of the Project For The New American Century (PNAC). Their stated objective was promoting an unashamed projection of America's foreign policy objectives at the point of a gun (Civilize 'em with a Krag, as it was said during our first attempt at Empire in 1898; a Krag being the standard American infantry rifle at the time).

Little Davy was the, uh, right-hand BFF of Bill Kristol (also a PNAC member), who had taken over as editor at the National Review, the right wing's leading journal founded by William F. Buckley.


Young Davy, An Up-And-Coming... Something

Davy later washed up at another rightist-porn rag sheet, The Weekly Standard. He made a name for himself as one of a crop of young, up-and-coming right-wing pundits; essentially, Brooks learned how to fluff old-line conservatives like Buckley and Norman Podhoretz, and to get close to their darlings, like Kristol. There was a career in it (Davy could smell it), though the Clinton years were hard until 1994. Davy spoke highly of Gingrich and his Contract On America, even if as a serial adulterer Ol' Newt made Davy's nose wrinkle up.

Then, Lil' Boots Bush was appointed by a conservative majority on the the Supreme Court, and the crowd at PNAC had automatic entry to run American foreign policy. They needed propagandists. Little Davy's career took off.


Man Meets Pie: Kristol At 2005 Speaking Engagement

Davy was an unabashed and enthusiastic cheerleader of the invasion of Iraq, as was his boss Kristol at NR. I'm not going to argue the case that attacking Iraq was utterly unnecessary, based on lies and manufactured intelligence, and resulted in America taking it's eyes off the real goal of a War On Terror: Destroying Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

The invasion was nothing more than a way of projecting naked military power directly into the heart of the Middle East; it was utterly the brainchild of the people who founded PNAC and those who saw war as a golden opportunity to make millions -- and it was arguably the worst possible decision the United States has made, ever. And Little Davy thought it was swell.


"Suck On This": Bucky And Clueless Tom, Who Hearted PNAC's Iraq

Some feel that the 100,000 Iraqis killed during our March, 2003 invasion (the most conservative estimate, courtesy of the British medical journal, The Lancet), and the 4,000 American soldiers who have died there, did so for no real reason beyond the arrogance and greed of a handful of men... that they, and their enablers who (like Davy) promoted that war and fed lies to the American public about it, have blood on their hands.

I agree with that perspective -- and in my opinion, while Little Davy (whom I like to call Bucky The Beaver) certainly isn't alone, he's an unindicted war criminal.


Me Jourimalismist. No Habla Veritidad.

And in the aftermath of seven years of Iraq, and in Afghanistan, with a resurgent Taliban and Al-Qaeda, life is good for Bucky. He's a well-known opinion-maker; he's one hell of a pundit (whatever that is). Want an example? Well, Bucky has pushed the idea in the past that our culture is awash in sex, and that

...sex is more explicit everywhere, barring real life. As the entertainment media have become more sex-saturated, American teenagers have become more sexually abstemious by waiting longer to have sex... and having fewer partners. [The Culture War is] nearly over, because today's young people seem happy with the ... wholesomeness of the right. (NYT, 2007)

Awesome. Just Awesome. Bucky appears to believe the 'Culture War' his Right-wing has waged on the rest of the country, on the entire world, is all about sex... And in that same spirit through his NYT column, Bucky pushed his little crooked snout into a story waving around today's entertainment headlines: The circumstances actress Sandra Bullock is currently involved in -- and in fairness to Ms. Bullock, whatever that situation is, it's private, and none of anyone's business; we're not going to be discussing it here.



Bucky titled his screed "The Sandra Bullock Trade", wherein he uses her private misfortune as some kind of conservative teaching moment -- and the lesson for all America's women in considering Bullock's situation? Women of America -- you can choose a career, but your success will be hollow, because you lost your chance for real happiness and fulfillment.

Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow? [Bucky chittered] ... if you had to take more than three seconds to think about this question, you are absolutely crazy. Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being.

If you have a successful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many professional setbacks you endure, you will be reasonably happy. If you have an unsuccessful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many career triumphs you record, you will remain significantly unfulfilled.

Bucky's entitled to his tail-thumping opinions (no pun intended, there) -- but this is, frankly, oversimplified, juvenile bullshit. It's not a very nuanced grasp of human motivation. I wonder how wide or deep his personal experience is with partnership, sexuality and human nature; based on his comment, my guess is narrow and shallow.

For Bucky, those women who are focused on their careers are losers. Worse; they're insane. In his world, American teens are now more abstemious, more moderate in their sexual habits, than their free-love dirty hippie grandparents as a reaction to a culture saturated with sex. And, Women -- surrounded by images of equality and self-actualization -- should do the same, forsaking individuality to... become homemakers and mothers?


Obligatory Cute Animal Photo Added To Cultural Discussion:
Giant Beaver Statue Outside Grand Prairie, Alberta, Canada

I'm not arguing that women must have careers. But Women should have the choice, as adults, as individuals. To drag Bullock into his argument as a negative object lesson, insinuating she had been punished for choosing a professional career -- that her current circumstances are somehow her own fault because she made that choice -- is standard, misogynist boilerplate and it makes me want to puke.

Did Bucky give up on a career as a right-wing propagandist for a war which could be classified as a violation of the Nuremberg Statutes, so he could find true fulfillment through marriage and love?

No -- because as a man, he can work hard at a "serious" career (though in Bucky's case, being an unidicted war criminal isn't really a career), and have his dinner ready when he gets home, and get laid, while his wife is... well, Bucky's wife. And what would Bucky's reaction have been if anyone pointed this out to him -- make that sniggering little rat-toothed giggle, familiar to News Hour viewers?


'Loss Of Dignity'? From Someone Who Looks Like Pikachu??

The difference between Bucky and myself is while both of us have opinions, only Bucky speaks from a soapbox that potentially reaches millions of people, with the gravitas of the New York Times supporting it ... and only one of us has a sense of humor.

And, while some of my opinions may strike others as out of step, even for a Dog -- only Bucky would ever tell women that the institution of marriage is the more legitimate, more fulfilling path to self-definition than other adult choices.



But, I'm a dog, and no one listens to me. If I ever meet you, Bucky, I'll bite you and pee on your leg. Stay classy, and stay out of countries that recognize the legitimacy of the World Court in the Hague.

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