It Must Be Nice to Be a Right Wing Columnist. David Brooks is Shocked Shocked! To Find Out That Barack Obama is a Liberal

Did I miss something?  I'm puzzled after reading David Brooks column "Bailout to Nowhere".

I thought that David Brooks was an Obama backer.  Didn't he listen to the kinds of things that Senator Obama was saying?

Did Brooks believe Obama was going to morph into George W. Bush?

Maybe Brooks has taken on the "I was for Obama before I was against him role".  In fact, leaving out the joke on Kerry there, that is a regular right wing talking points position in which former backers of liberals suddenly realize that the object of their one time admiration is supposedly corrupt and anti democratic.

This is playing out in California as trolls on news discussion shows are saying that they were sympathetic to the same sex marriage cause, but now are turned off by the demonstrations.  

The point they try to make is that the LGBT people should just shut up and go hide in their closets again.

In reality, very few people switch sides because of demonstrations, even with the news media doing their best to demonize same sex marriage supporters.  But those 'disappointed' trolls are doing their best to sway the weak minded.  It's an old Nixon trick.

Well, David Brooks is disappointed that Barack Obama wants to save the auto industry.    

Bailing out Wall Street was one thing he says.  We had to save the financial market!  Oh, but Mr. B. Those  bailed out financiers are not loosening up their lending fingers and our economy is being flushed down the toilet because they won't return the favor and rescue us.  They must be sewing that money into hidden pockets in their parachutes, so the feds don't see the gold.  I think that after what we've seen happen we have to question why we had to rescue those bankers!

I guess David Brooks doesn't because those columnists who support Wall Street, especially at the New York Times, find they have a very promising career.

But the car companies can go to Hell.  

Yet, doesn't Brooks realize that if only one of the big three car companies goes under it could mean 2.5 million jobs?

Well, I guess old Dave figures that it doesn't mean his job.

But the auto companies control the only big industry left in America that actually makes something to export.  (Well, I do tend to treat food crops as a natural resource because they just kind of grow.)

I'm afraid to go to Thanksgiving at my sister's and talk to my nephew who's working in the building trade.  Things were okay in July.  He'd just bought a little truck to help him work more efficiently.  I hope he didn't have payments on the 15 year old vehicle.  Used car dealers have ways of charging a lot for those old things, especially trucks.  I don't want to see the fear in the eyes of his family, that I suspect will be there.

That's a personal experience, but I know we can multiply that by 2.5 million if we let even one major auto company fails.

I guess people like my nephew and his family don't float into the rarefied air that David Brooks and his wealthy friends inhabit, though.

And they called Obama an 'elitist'!

I am glad that Brooks took off his mask though. 

He says:

Airline, steel and retail companies have gone through bankruptcy proceedings and adjusted. 

Well, sir, many of them adjusted by going out of business.  Even some of the ones which are left adjusted by getting out the pension deals they had with their workers.   You also may notice Mr. Brooks that we actually have almost no steel industry left, and that which we have mostly services  the auto industry.  

Another choice gem:

As Megan McArdle of The Atlantic wittily put it, “Working for the Big Three magically combines vast corporate bureaucracy and job insecurity in one completely unattractive package.” 

Sir, quoting another of your right wing attack squads members does not make some kind of trustworthy source for your assertions.  Yet, right wing columnists rely on their lie buddies.  I guess you don't have much else to go on, do you?

...if Obama was such a fervent believer in the Chinese model of all-powerful technocrats, he should have mentioned it during the campaign. 

Really?  Don't you think, that if he were going to allow the huge auto industry to fail and leave other nations to pick up auto making that he should have mentioned that?   The fact that he didn't should have been your first clue.  Funny though, the right used working class middle Americans, the very kinds of people who would be working (in the millions) for the big three automakers.  Yet, they're ready, once the election is over to throw them in the pit.

Let me say it again, Mr. Brooks.  It's your fancy financial sector that won't make the loans so people can buy cars, and that's why the automobile manufacturers are looking for help.  

That help could come with some constraints, like being forced to change to high mpg autos, and hybrids which will be much more popular from now on.

Government could use that $50 billion — and more — to help the workers who are going to be displaced no matter what.

Mr. Brooks, if one fails 2.5 million workers means that if three fail 7.5 million workers.  The usual 'help for displaced workers' entails overpaying some privatized retraining program for rudimentary computer skills and advice on filling out a resume.  Anything else, like monetary compensation will be called 'welfare' by the right and be short-lived and puny.  And how about the retail sector, so strongly hit already.  Does it need to lose 7.5 million more shoppers?

Thanks for helping me remember how much the right wing has always hated the working class in Detroit and the rust belt.  It's kinda like New Orleans and Katrina all over again, isn't it?

But, maybe you should tell the rest of the folk that depend on the viability of the US auto industry, like Joe the Plumber, that they aren't needed anymore.  The election is over. 

tags: david brooks  auto industry  president elect  obama  detroit  new orleans  rust belt  

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