David Brooks Perfects Hypocrisy
In 25 Insults or Less
The morning after seeing Fahrenheit 9/11, I opened the New York Times to see Op-Ed columnist David Brooks write a full-column diatribe--or perhaps a jeremiad--or both--on Mike Moore and his apparently mortal sin of criticizing America--especially abroad. For the record, here's the article on the NY Times website. (You'll have to either have an account with them or sign up for a free one to read it.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/26/opinion/26BROO.html
Every now and then I feel annoyed enough by someone's idiocy to write a letter to the editor. Here's my reply in 239 words. I felt it articulated something important, so I humored myself by putting it online here. Feel free to write to Mr. Brooks about his article at the address below.David Brooks, June 26, 2004
dabrooks@nytimes.com
Dear Editors,
I admit I have never knowingly read Brooks’ column before, so I don’t know his usual political stance. However, his June 26th column (All Hail Moore; Around the world in 80 insults) manages to perfectly capture the behavior of the current American right, which criticizes and shreds while complaining loudly about how the left does nothing but criticize and shred.
He falls short of calling Moore (and in a single backhanded slap, the entire Democratic wing of the U.S. Senate) “un-American,” but only because he insinuates it so strongly. Brooks overlooks the irony in his scathing criticisms of Moore while holding up John Dewey, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Martin Luther King Jr. as examples of “good” liberals. Each was also excoriated, mocked, and called un-American, and in the case of MLK, murdered for his intellectual and moral leadership.
If that weren’t enough, Brooks completely misses Moore’s point (and probably Dewey’s, Niebuhr’s, and MLK’s, too). Moore, and all of us, criticize this country not because we are prissy intellectual whores to Europe or staunch America-haters, but because we love America dearly and see it going very, very wrong.
I am so tired of the schoolyard bully mentality of right-wing loudmouths who can’t see their own hypocrisies, calling everyone who isn’t part of their gang sissies, all the while screaming “he hit me first” to the first teacher on the scene.
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J Klein is the creator of DemocracyMeansYou and occasionally writes and pens cartoons for the site. He lives in an undisclosed location in North Carolina with Dick Cheney.
DemocracyMeansYou was started as both an artistic response to the ubiquitous flag stickers after 9/11 (the THINK sticker was the impetus for the whole shebang), and a forum for liberal and progressive opinion, humor (always important), and inspiring / urging / demanding participation in the democratic process.
He has written for various publications and websites over the years, has worked as a licensed Psychiatric Technician with both the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled; worked as a mechanic for several years; worked for local government promoting ridesharing and alternative transportation in California; quantifying school accountability for California schools; and marketing writing and web design.
