Babbling Brooks

you want some advice? advice is like shit on butthair; every asshole has some, and this asshole is no exception .... but hey, you want some advice? here goes, then, without further a doo:

"Let me offer some advice.

Let's say you're a Republican appointed to an important job in Washington. You'll probably find that 90 percent of the people who work in your agency are Democrats, as are 90 percent of the media types who cover you and 90 percent of the academics who comment on your work.

But here's the thing to remember: There are Democrats, and then there are Democrats. A quarter of the Democrats you'll work with are partisans. They believe the rantings of the agitprop pundits, and they'll never be open-minded toward you. But the other three-quarters are honorable, intelligent people. If you treat these people with respect, and find places where you can work together, they will teach you things and make you more effective. If you treat them the way you treat the partisans, they’ll turn into partisans and destroy you.

The choice seems pretty obvious, yet Republican after Republican mucks this up. Which brings us to the case of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank.

Wolfowitz came to the bank with the heavy baggage of Iraq. Nonetheless, most of the (left-leaning) employees were open to him, and even saw ways his background could help him solve the bank's problems. Furthermore, you have to remember that the bank is staffed by people who are criticized from all directions and are desperate for approval and support.

Wolfowitz had an opportunity to be their champion, but he forfeited that opportunity by being aloof. As David E. Sanger and Steven R. Weisman of The Times have detailed, he entered a treacherous swirl of political, institutional and personal currents and navigated them poorly. Having failed to woo the open-minded people at the bank, it was inevitable they'd be out to get him.

In most scandals, people adjust their standards of rectitude, depending on whether they support or oppose the person at issue. The subject's enemies whip themselves into a fever of theatrical outrage, and the subject's defenders summon up fits of indignation at the lies of the accusers. Scandals are playgrounds for partisans, and everybody else gets to play the role of the junior high school bully, ganging up on whoever seems weakest and most alone.

The Wolfowitz scandal is no exception. People who never called for Kofi Annan to resign amid the $12.8 billion oil-for-food scandal are calling for Wolfowitz's head over a $60,000 raise. Employees at an institution that, according to one report, wasted $300 million last year, and where roughly 1,000 people make $175,000 to $200,000 a year, are suddenly outraged at lavish spending. Editorials and statements by critics around the world are carefully crafted to avoid mentioning any of the exculpatory evidence on Wolfowitz's side."

wow! gosharootie .... no, really ... i mean, golly gee winnikins! that's some great advice, isn't it? gosh, it's like miss manners, or emily post, or dear abby ..... why, this man gets paid--and paid a lot--to write great stuff like this .... no, i mean it .... a lot ....... and then he gets paid even more to talk stuff like that on television .... or on the radyo .... and people think he's rilly rilly smart!

that's from my man david brooks, at the left-leaning new york times, today (may 3, 2007) ..... no, i mean it: david, thanks for telling me all that; i never woulda knowed it if'n ya hadn't'a tolme .....

what does it take to be such an asshole? is there a product on the market that i'm missing, called "one-a-day-retarded-scumfuck-completely-deluded-sucks-ass-lips-moronicallly stupid pills?" does he write copy for them, when he isn't writing for the times? did this no-battery dildo get a free lifetime supply? i took drugs for years, but nothing i ever took put me this far out of touch with any kind of reality, and it wasn't for lack of trying .....

hey david .... let me give you some advice ..... first of all, republicans are never appointed to unimportant positions in washington; they go in and out of the revolving doors between the k street lobbies and karl rove's personal bathroom ..... second of all, david, you fucking dimwit, i guess you're too busy jerking off over donald duck comics to have read about the attorney purge, or how other titular heads of governmental agencies have been replaced by lobbyists: the democrats have long since been purged from any reasonable position of import, unless it's janitorial .... oh .... ha ha .... silly me ..... that's been outsourced to the darker complected .....

meanwhile, media types are mostly like yourself, david: shameless, conscienceless suck machines whose lips are fastened to the spigots of power and whose sphincters warble the company's mantras--in other words, mindless vacuums who suck and swallow, suck and swallow, before spitting a little bit back out onto the printed page, where it passes as wisdom and insight .... garbage like edward's haircut, or gore's suits, or what a b***tch hillary is .......

as for academics being democrats, you're probably right there; most republicans can't make it through a two-year college course, unless it's pat robertson university, where the only text required is the illustrated bible, and that'll catapult you into the justice department .....

jesus, what an asshole ...... "the rantings of agitprop pundits ...." yada yada yada .... takes one to know one, takes one to know one ....... yada yada yada ...... god spare me this petty psychobabble bulshit: "the bank is staffed by people who are criticized from all directions and are desperate for approval and support ...." ooooooooooo ....... i've just privatized the utilities in a third world country and now no native can afford electricity and their water is full of schistosomiasis ..... pleeeeze, mr wooofybits, yore my champeen ..... mister woofybitch, wonchoo pleeeze approoove of whut i've dun? i rilly need the 'proval of someone whooze a lying sociopath who fucked up eerak and killed hundreds of thousands of pipple wont yoo approove me pleeze i think yore gurlfrends very pritty too ....... 'n' then i kin go and privatize the air do yoo approov of that i think its a rill good idea please please please massa woollybutt please please say you like me please pleeze plizzzz ......

excuse me i must go and evert my lower colon into the basura .......

i'm not sure what exculpatory evidence dave's referring to here .... but maybe he means they couldn't find a blue dress .... with--ha ha--white polka dots on it ..... ha ha ..... ha ha .......

i guess there's a lot of needy mass murderers out there who need .... sniff sniff boo hoo ..... approval ...... george tenet comes to mind ..... boy, there's a real champ for you .... a man of courage and conviction, who had the courage to hold out for four years, for a four million dollar book deal ..... there's no shortage of assholes in this country, is there? you know what i'd like? i'd like to see all these people of conviction getting convicted ..... wouldn't you? wouldn't you like to see these scumfuckers hauled up before the court in the hague on war crimes? and crimes against humanity? wouldn't that be a great chistmas present to give your children? all the world's children? huh ? you'd like that? well, goddam it: call your senators and congresspersons now and demand impeachment ...... do it now .....DO IT NOW! I WANT TO TALK ABOUT MUSIC! I NEED TO TALK ABOUT MUSIC! I'VE GOT MUSIC I WANT TO FUCKING TALK ABOUT!

meanwhile, it's a good thing we have our "i'm the commander guy" who won't let those intrusive pesky dummokrats micromanage "the war ....." well, actually i don't mean "the war ....." what i really mean is our illegal invasion and occupation of a non-threatening sovereign nation ..... why would our commander-guy-in-chief need any help? why, him 'n' his buddies, other than doin' it in the first place? they're the ones that didn't think it worthwhile, guarding the 380 tons of munitions and explosions that whose disappearance appeared back in october of '04 .... well, i don't mean "disappeared," not really, because it keeps popping up in the darndest places, like the green zone ..... or under people's feet ..... or their vehicles ..... help me do the math ..... 380 tons of high explosive into 3,487 soldiers and whaddaya get?

a fucking mess; someone get a sponge ......

next: dr. pete gets a sponge

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PETER KAUKONEN, San Francisco Bay Area guitarist, has played, toured, and recorded with Black Kangaroo, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Johnny Winter.

3 Comments

Steve Duddy says:

I emailed our Nancy Pelosi on the day the Democrats won the last election. I emailed her both to congratulate her on her hard work and to tell her why I voted Green rather than for her: to wit, that she said she wouldn't even consider impeachment proceedings against the Thief Executive. I reminded her that just on the available public evidence the Chimp in Charge is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and if the Democrats do not have him brought up on charges then they are as guilty as he is. That was, when? November, 2006. And the Democrats are as jelly spined as ever.

BUT...as someone said..."We don't have the luxury of despair"

so we don't give up...

Submitted by Steve Duddy on Wed, 07/16/2014 - 11:55
Scarlett says:

"call your senators and congresspersons now and demand impeachment"

Dr. Pete,

I've taken your above advice and hit the phones and email.

I just want to know............by the time congress debates whether they want to start impeachment proceedings...... all the way until "that thing" is out of the White House..............

Do you think there will be any sand I can bury my head in left in the world that hasn't been turned to glass ?

Submitted by Scarlett on Wed, 07/16/2014 - 11:55
Steven Schuster says:

petey,

You miss the paradigmatic ideal which David Brooks evinces. All of evolutionarnary biology's teleologic focusing has come together, 50,000 years of subtle genetic development by mutation, to reach the pinacle of utilitarian perfection- David Brook's smirk! The absolutely perfect melding of facial musculature and the meat-sack adaptation to express the essence of the Republican message- "I've got mine, fuck you" in a non-threatening, apparently (even to the blind and deaf, no offense intended to the blind and deaf) gracious superficial layer of good cheer and civility. This man, were he actually a cobra, rather than just playing one, could entice a mongoose to have his teeth pulled as an expression of right-mindedness. Get a clue, petey, David Brooks should be a made National Treasure, in the same way that the Japanees honor sand scrapers and small tree torturers -"BONSAI!! yankee dog"... He is the ultimate culmination of the art of hypocrisy. Honor him. The best of anything is worth respect.

Steve Schuster

Wanna ride soon?

Submitted by Steven Schuster on Wed, 07/16/2014 - 11:56

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