David Brooks is pissed about values - mostly John Kerry's values...

[kentuck]

Funny, he never seemed to have that problem with Bush and the Republican "values"? It's only when someone else attempts to trespass on Republican holy ground that they get so angry. Because only Repubs have values. What a transparent editorial!
================================================================


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/opinion/17BROO.html

<snip>
I know that John Kerry shares my values. I know that John Kerry shares your values. I know that John Kerry shares John Edwards's values, who also, by the way, shares my values. I know they both share your accountant's values, your butcher's values, your mechanic's values. If a Martian showed up from outer space, they'd share its values, too.

<snip>
Kerry and Edwards are going to keep using the word "values." And, given the overmanaged structure of their campaign, they probably have a Values and Spirituality Task Force. I see a values teleconference: Oprah on the speakerphone, Joseph Campbell coming in through the Ouija board, the Dalai Lama patched in by satellite.

When Kerry uses the word "values," it's meant to send a message: I am not who I am. I am not the blue-blooded prep-school kid who married two millionaires, dated a movie star and has a prenup and umpteen homes in tony locales; who has spent the past two decades as a moderately liberal senator from Massachusetts; and who likes to snowboard at Sun Valley and windsurf off Nantucket. I'm just your back-fence neighbor in Mayberry, out there in overalls, sidlin' over to the fence to chat: "Howdy neighbor! Would you like to come visit for a spell and hear about my values of faith, hope and opportunity?"

....more

[LittleApple81]

1. I am getting to the point that I just look at what is posted on DU about

these jerks and that is PLENTY. I cannot bear to read what they write, to watch their awful hypocrite faces, to listen to their voices...There is never anything new. Just talking points and misrepresentation of reality.
Thanks for posting this. It keeps me informed without having to go through the torture of looking at their entire diatribes.

[Kolesar]

4. well put

Brooks' third paragraph in that excerpt was particularly pathetic. Values are not about whether you come from humble origins or not. Maybe we best not click on the NY Times. It will only encourage them.

[gpandas]

6. you said it all, littleapple. eom.

[emulatorloo]

2. I think David Brooks is pissed about the diminishing $$$ "Value" of his

commentary. . .how much longer is he going to be able to sell this crap? Why does anyone even bother having him on TV anymore? Has his new book been remaindered yet? I think these are the Value Issues he worries about.

[UTUSN]

3. Um, Is "Excellence" a Value?

JK does athletic things, plays guitar, rides a motorcycle, writes poetry, exercised a social conscience. Shrub has nothing.

[Guaranteed]

10. Of course it is!

Remember Homer's "Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence?" :P

[JPJones]

5. Why does the NY Times keep this neo-con on staff? n/t

[ChocolateSaltyBalls]

9. To keep things 'fair and balanced'..........

or so it would seem.

I'm assuming it's the same reason that Tucker Carlson now sullies PBS with his new show.

[DeepModem Mom]

24. I read some gossip that he's a laughing-stock in the halls of the NYT...

Giving him an op-ed slot was a big mistake. I have a feeling, after reading his books, that he doesn't believe what he says and is only in it for the money. We laugh at how far he has to reach to come up with a column.

[Guaranteed]

7. No, David. When Kerry uses the word "values," what he's saying

is that HE understands what America is really all about. HE knows what "freedom" really means. Whereas your idea of America is amending the constitution to TAKE rights from people and invading countries that never attacked or even threatened us, Kerry knows that the real America stands for LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR *ALL*.

You're just to stupid to realize that he's putting you down in an oh-so-subtle way. *wink wink*

[gollygee]

8. I have two questions

What movie star did he date?

And how does him having money differentiate him from W? If having money means you dont' have values, then George and Co. should be taken down in this article as well.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. Excuse me, but values have nothing to do with social class

Is this bozo saying that rich New Englanders can't have the same values as us poor folks in the rest of the country? Kerry can't help being born where he was any more than I can help being born where I was. It's not your background, your wealth, that matters, it's what you DO with it.

Bush chose to be a drunken frat boy who pulled strings to get into the Guard. Kerry chose to volunteer and face combat. My brother did two tours in Viet Nam and came home with a Silver Star. He might have been born half a continent away from John Kerry, to a much poorer family, but I assure you he feels that the values of John Kerry are much closer to him than the values of hypocritic, drunken cowards like Shrub.

[acmavm]

12. This guy is too stupid to even have an opinion on 'values'. He's such

a bloody-fingered hack that I don't even read his crap anymore. People like him are just as responsible for the deaths almost 900 of our poor troops and thousands of Iraqi civilians as the bush* administration.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Well, he sure got himself and Bush right.

"I'm just your back-fence neighbor in Mayberry"

The great American myth of a lily white America in overalls, eatin' corn bread and barbecue and tunin' in some wrasslin' and NASCAR. Where everybody is "neighborly", poverty is the fault of the poor, blacks and other minorities are kept in their place, women just love to keep house and have pretty little white babies, everybody goes to (Protestant) church on Sunday, and Amurka is always just and our soldiers carry Hershey bars instead of guns.

And, it's all very, very, very, nice.

And, for your next fairy tale....

[blm]

14. Sounds like he's describing Bush not Kerry.

.

[Cocoa]

15. pure hypocrisy

just two weeks ago, Brooks played the values card to sidestep questions about Bush's responsibility for Iraq and the economy. As always, he has to throw in a condescending class analysis...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec04/sb_7-2.html

<snip>

DAVID BROOKS:

...

In some sense I think that the best way to predict how people are going to vote on issues if you ask them on issues, it's do you think it's worth going to Iraq, that's the number one issue; the economy is way down there. I think values are above that. Talk about God, does this person share your values is sort of a vague but important question.

JIM LEHRER: Why do you think the economy is so far down?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think there are a lot of reasons. It was down in 2000. Gore inherited a pretty good economic record. I happen to think the electorate is moving towards value issues and has been for 20 years and values issues and foreign policy in some sense, a values issue, have just taken precedence over bread and butter issues.
think that's an effective, more educated electorate who tend to vote on values less than working class people. I think it's just a shift in what the two parties stand for. Quite often it's values that differentiate people.

JIM LEHRER: Is it possible they no longer hold the president responsible?

DAVID BROOKS: I think there's a lot to that and certainly a lot of truth to that.

JIM LEHRER: Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: I disagree on what people think is important, David. And we are going to have a test on it. I mean, the Republicans are going to bring up the constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage, going to have a Senate vote on it.

You know, it gets a couple of edges and it maybe picks up a point here, but it's not going to determine this election. Jim, what I find fascinating from the conservative side is Bill Clinton had eight years of uninterrupted economic prosperity in this country, really a remarkable record.

more...

[MichiganVote]

16. All I know

is that whenever the Republicans are talking about their "values" they are making pointed references to everybody else's "sins"

When the Democrates are talking about values, the Republicans then refer to their issues as "shortcomings".

Go figure. These guys should take a page out of the handbook of the Mafia.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

17. when brooks says values he means class war

This is the GOP/Conservative jutjitsu....

...use "class war" types of resentments and hostility against the affluent, but direct them against lifestyle issues.

[wicket]

18. What a vile column

:grr:

[kentuck]

19. I thought so, too, wicket....

His anger about John Kerry's values just flames up from the page...

[Nikki Stone 1]

21. Maybe Kerry should have relocated to Texas, bought a ranch and adopted a

cheap Texas accent. That's what Shrub did to hide his rich Northeast origins.

[wicket]

28. Bush's accent

His accent is so fake. The early clips of him in F9/11 show what a phony he is.

[KittyWampus]

20. Brooks Is So Insultingly Stupid He's Not Worth Deconstructing

honestly, they could at LEAST get someone to write trash that has some actual TALENT.

[TA]

22. Exactly what you would expect from a neocon

[KC21304]

23. I think he better pay attention to what * Bush has been saying lately.

The arrogant bas---d just last week said the Sen from MA did not have the same values as the people of NC, FL, and where ever else he was that day.

[spanone]

25. I really don't care what David Brooks thinks. He's a RW idiot.

[Old and In the Way]

26. David Brooks, the quintessential Republican lapdog.

Poor Dave, he traded his conscience for 12 pieces of silver and an opportunity for a little public exposure. It must take him weeks of agonizing wordcraft to publish these stinkers.

Republican "Values"....what a joke. He's pissed because Democrats are using words that Republicans think they own.

[Straight Shooter]

27. "Democrats are using words that Republicans think they own."

BINGO!!

They hijacked some very precious words, and we want them back!