david brooks vs. thomas friedman vs. ross douthat

a concern troll then; how innovative

if forced at gunpoint to read one of the three every day for the rest of my life i'd still choose douthat

friedman... just pull the trigger

your doppelganger

while we also talk about their merits as writers, how about we also turn this into a MFK thread?

when i was working a (very good and non-depressing) temp job at a financial planning group, the well meaning 50 something jewish libs frequently discussed friedman columns in reverent hushed tones... first time i'd ever heard anyone irl bring dude up as a serious columnist

voted Douthat cause i hate the way he couches intolerant/ugly sentiments in the deceptive rhetoric of "reason" and "balance"

― demolition with discretion (m coleman), Thursday, April 19, 2012 8:48 PM (43 minutes ago)

^^

i still find that less distasteful (or at least more garden variety) than friedman's schtick

all three are vile of course

NYT doesn't really have any 'very good' writers as columnists. i mean krugman's always worth a read but even following charles m blow on twitter has tempered my like of him

krugman is a very good writer

i'd heard that 'from beirut to jerusalem' was good, but find it a little hard to credit now -- perhaps the subject matter restrained him from making it an archetypical global fable, as with everything else?

yeah i changed my mind after i wrote his name and didn't bother to change my first statement haha xp

charles m blow seems ripe for display name puns, now that i think of it

The late William Safire was the only one who could occasionally write a sentence I'd read twice.

i agree that krugman is worth reading and i always do but i am often smh at the way he seems to be preaching to the choir, he takes such a hard line that even though he's right he sort of paints himself into an ideological corner that just inflames the right instead of engaging him

obv that's not entirely or even largely his fault but i feel like he's wielding a battle axe when should be using the rapier

lol ross douchehat

brooks is like the bill gates looking dude in the back of newsweek who even though i am on the other side of the political spectrum i find myself agreeing with or at least appreciating the differing view cause his tone is measured

really love the loyal opposition guy though

Krugman has given up on trying to talk w/ the shit-throwing baboons who call themselves conservatives these days. i don't blame him at all, it's really the most sensible approach.

i'll also stan for Nicholas Kristof.

Krugman is a classic example of a pundit with whom I agree often but whose prose is pedestrian at best (boy, does he love his rhetorical questions).

douthat = least stupid/ most hateful

krugman = shrill
brooks/douthat = reasonable

does this perception hurt k-thug or not?

friedman at the very least seems interested in interesting things

haha otm

interested in reducing them to a catch phrase?

THE WORLD IS NOT FLAT; SHUT UP

^^haha fair enough. still, the other two (esp Douthat) are kind of just dicks. if you're going to be a dick, you'd better be right and/ or interesting

I feel like I could get thomas friedman to change his mind on a lot of things if you just framed it in the 'interesting thoughts about interesting things' way, and maybe if you dressed up a a taxi driver

"what if universal health care...was an app?"

I'm going to vote for... (breaks down crying)... I can't DO IT! ... I just can't. (snivels, wipes snot on sleeve, mutters)... stupid furschlugginer dolts the lot of 'em.

friedman at the very least seems least interested in interesting things

fxed

lol

that was supposed to be to iatee

^ genuine lol, partly cuz i have heard that question raised in real life

xpost to iatee

anyhow this is so fucking easily brooks for me and probably still would be even if bill kristol was still there

daaaamn

how awesome is it that Kristol made a major factual mistake in his first 2008 column

brooks is the worst

person in history

u forgot krauthammer

http://peteykins.com/sparklepony/Krauthammer.jpg

a week ago i might've said marty peretz

what has changed

I know C-Kraut had a horrible accident but it's as if the surgeons fixed his face on purpose so that it's deformed into a smug asshole leer.

10 years ago he used to come into my bookstore in a wheelchair and kind of hand me his wallet with his wrists. he was at least pleasant in person, unlike gwill

well his writing at the new republic has been steadily diminished for a few years but apparently supposedly hopefully now w/ the sale going thru he's no longer going to be writing for them at all anymore. i'm not really expecting the new republic to become in any fashion less militantly pro-israel and i'm sure should circumstances warrant it or whatever he'll be able to chime in w/ some bigoted rant (he's still on the advisory board).

Krauthammer worked for Mondale!

yeah he was kind of standard cold warrior neocon lib w/ likudnik tendencies that grew more entrenched and extreme in those positions, gradually adopting more conservative domestic positions (esp the ones you could wrap in 'morality') as he began to spend more time/accept more checks from that crowd.

This is really impossible since reading all these dudes is like dousing your eyes with acid, but I'm going to have to say Friedman because even though he's probably the least wrong of these fuckers, he's the one of the three who people actually listen to the most (followed by Brooks and then trailed by a huge huge huge margin by Douchehead who I think most people forget exists most of the time.)

love this article so much http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/05/03/christopher-tayler/yo-douche-bag/

quotes from the social animal

Imagine a man who buys a chicken from the grocery store, manages to bring himself to orgasm by penetrating it, then cooks and eats the chicken.

guess i'll have to go w/ Ross for worst. but i'll freely admit that it has more to do with my distaste for social conservatives than anything.

friedman easy

Piss on this turd:

Yes yes yes:https://t.co/UFWtGzepXG

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) November 2, 2022

Israel and Hungary, huh

weirdo

A proposed screening Q for the next GOP administration: Is Swift-Kelce --
(a) a sweet thing to watch and maybe the last best hope for America, we need them to marry and procreate
(b) a psy-op to get NFL fans to get booster shots and vote for Democrats
no (b)s need apply

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) January 29, 2024

lol Stephen Miller would probably choose a)

Truly wish Lyme would have just killed him.

we need them to marry and procreate

normal!

c. *monday night football song starts playing*

it is kinda funny that b is more true than a but its not "a psy-op" its just a contrived celebrity relationship like theyve been doing in hollywood for 100 years

they're both gay?

if youve never looked into the taylor swift conspiracysphere and are interested in such things then i can recommend it

gaylor has been pretty much canon on tumblr for at least a decade

I'm pretty sure the smiley football guy op is damage control for the Matty Healy op

taylors been getting in the news for her boyfriends for 15 year now but this one is next level, multiple appearances on the most watched tv show of the week, travis kelce is booking credit card commercials, everyones winning

Celebrity creampies that can save America's bipartisan consensus.

everyones winning

i'm getting a bit tired of winning so much

Wow I had no idea all that MAGA Taylor Swift stuff was a thing. Kinda wish I still didn’t know.

Eh, it's better than when they thought she was an Aryan goddess awhile back.

On the recent grasping of Swift conspiracy by the dumbass misogynist Charlie Kirk types:

…To be acceptable in this strange crowd you gotta believe getting vaccinated is unmanly, you gotta believe Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are nefarious plants to elect Joe Biden, you gotta believe all sorts of foods and activities will make you too feminine, but that a man can ever be a woman. And so on and so forth. This set of beliefs, always paired with the need for dominant and potentially violent manhood, contributes to more and more men viewing unhealthy, dangerous masculinity and fascist beliefs as core parts of their identity. And this wave of young men is shifting right in their political beliefs. But while we can’t deny the danger of this shift, and the danger of men being taught to hate women, as evidenced by the link between domestic violence and mass shootings, there is a real possibility that this sharp edge of patriarchy can only go so far. These misogyny influencers have done and will do serious damage, but sharpen the patriarchy too much and it gets brittle and fragile. Sharpen it too much, as these men are doing, and you begin to lose people. You begin to demand too much and men start to drop off.

https://open.substack.com/pub/newmeans/p/its-expensive-to-be-a-man

I'm pretty sure the smiley football guy op is damage control for the Matty Healy op

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Monday, January 29, 2024 1:58 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i'm sure dating travis kelce is a real relief after that douchebag

the kelce family seems nice

https://i.imgur.com/IWsAEKu.jpg