You better put down your drinks, and make sure there's nothing in your mouths, for the New York Times's David Brooks made a comment on Friday's News Hour that is guaranteed to evoke uncontrollable fits of laughter from those on the right side of the aisle.
*****Updates at end of post include similar opinions from conservative bloggers, as well as a video of a CNN correspondent saying roughly the same thing, and a response from the Kos Kidz.
After introducing regular guests Brooks and Mark Shields, host Jim Lehrer asked their opinions concerning the just-released Osama bin Laden video.
Brooks was second up with this absolutely marvelous observation (final warning to put down your drinks, video available here):
No, ludicrous. I mean, on one hand, he's a malevolent guy who killed 3,000 Americans. But you read this thing, and it's like he's been sitting around reading lefty blogs, and he's one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom the page, you know, Noam Chomsky and all this stuff.
You can't help read it and not laugh at it, occasionally, because it is just absurd. It's flying this way, and that way, weird conspiracy theories, and mortgages, global warming. He throws it all in there.
The one thing that leapt out -- and Bruce Hoffman and the others mentioned this -- was how Western it is. And a friend of mine, Reuel Gerecht, points out that there's this argument that Western ideas never permeated into the Arab world, but in fact it's all -- I mean, a lot of the worst ideas from the West have permeated in, and he's picked up Noam Chomsky, and he's picked up some of the anti-globalization stuff. And that's what infuses this.
Yah gotta love it!
*****Update: Please read the opinions of conservative bloggers with a similar view to what Brooks had to say. For instance, Allahpundit and IMAO.
*****Update II: Gateway Pundit chimes in.
*****Update III: CNN correspondent: "At times he comes off like an angry blogger chastising Americans for electing President Bush twice and the Democrats for not doing more to stop the Iraq war." Video available here.
*****Update IV: Charles Johnson finds a comical response from the Netroots: "And of course, this simple, obvious observation about bin Laden’s video (with its references to weird conspiracies, JFK, Marxism, and Noam Chomsky, like just about any lefty blog) has provoked seething from the Kos Kidz: Daily Kos: in defense of NOT firing David Brooks."
*****Update V: Glenn Reynolds has more.
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
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Comments Policy
Reading Lefty Blogs?
September 8, 2007 - 18:11 ET by vman92I'm just waiting for him to start calling for impeachment. I'm sure it is coming. And, after that, the Dems will rally around their own calls for impeachment. Isn't it odd how all of the Presidential candidates on the left sound exactly like Osama Bin Laden?
Epidemic?
September 8, 2007 - 18:23 ET by BarkerSounds like Osama and the Democrats share a common malady: Similar Rhetoric Syndrome
He didn't call for
September 8, 2007 - 18:43 ET by motherbeltHe didn't call for impeachment, but he pretty much said Bush should have been impeached. He berated us for re-electing him and allowing him to stay in office.
I said yesterday he sounded like he got the DNC talking points memo. Those guys should really be proud of themselves. You have to wonder if they aren't just a little embarrassed at hearing their own words come out of his mouth. I wish someone would ask ANY of the democrat Presidential candidates about it. (starting to hold breath now...)
It's not too far off, UBL,
September 9, 2007 - 00:24 ET by LighthouseJIt's not too far off, UBL, the Dems and MSM all want this little terrorism thing to just go away as a vehicle to deal a blow to the oh-so-terrible Republicans. UBL, Dems or the MSM don't care about saving lives or the troops themselves, they want to shame the Republicans to win in '08 and the best way to go about these days in their mind is to continuously remind all of us the American lives lost (but not Islamic extremists) and generally expected wartime costs. UBL, Dems and the MSM want to convince the rest of the country that the toll on America will become too much.
Didn't the US alone lose 400k during WWII? Nobody seems to have a problem with that. So far we've lost about 1/100th of men on the same fight against another group of one-worlders. Taking a look at the war by itself, what's really changed from WWII to now?
Here we have another group of people disillusioned and someone comes promising them a role in shaping the fantastic movement to take over the world. People join up, indoctrinate their children and teach them to hate. Pretty soon the political struggle ends and the military leaders just tell the soldiers who to kill.
"Boats are safe in the harbor, but that's not what they're made for." -- Maritime quote
BinBloggin24/7
September 8, 2007 - 18:12 ET by dodecahedronSurprisingly honest comments made by Brooks.
Osama as a blogger makes sense. I think I may have debated him over at ABC.com.
Vote for "<insert name of conservative who stands up to the media>" for President in 2008.
I didn't even think major
September 9, 2007 - 15:39 ET by TruthMongerI didn't even think major CONSERVATIVES had the guts to compare OBL to the Dems, much less these lefty "journalists"
I sure hope this runs for a good week at the water coolers...
Lost in Translation?
September 8, 2007 - 18:29 ET by BarkerDid Osama say he was going to challenge Nancy Pelosi for her congressional seat?
Barker
September 8, 2007 - 18:32 ET by botgand steal Cindy's thunder? hardly!
Supreme Court, National Security, Borders, Fiscal Restraint, my litmus test for President.
Daily Cous Cous
September 8, 2007 - 18:33 ET by Parker1227The Daily Kos meets Al-Jazeera. Call it The Daily Cous Cous.
Anyone get the idea that the Left might be carrying this "the enemy of my enemy" thing just a bit too far?
Idea for a thesis proposal at an far Left university humanities department: Keith Olbermann and the "Intellectual" Belt-bomb.
Bini and Nam and Rummy
September 8, 2007 - 18:39 ET by Gary HallBini and Nam and Rummy. Indeed, he's [Bini Laden] reading left wing material - perhaps Doonsbury. Last year, in an interview, Gary Trudeau assigned the Vietman War to Richard Nixon, including the US military deaths the millions of Vietnamese killed, in promoting his laughable view that President Bush was the worst since. LBJ was what, a mirage?
My favorite part of the Bini speech is where he puts Rumsfeld in the WH in charge of the Vietnam War, killing 2 milllion villagers, and then he has Kennedy coming into power, seeing the wrong, and in his effort to end it he gets knocked off by Rumsfeld and Cheney's friends, the corportations.
The question is: Will the media just let it lie on the table - this absurd re-write of history? How many young people around the world will pick it up and remember history the way that Bini does? Or, will the media jump all over him like an idiot, and set the record straight; that it was LBJ, not Rumsfeld who put over 800,000 US troops into Nam. JFK was before LBJ, and Nixon brought the troops home. Imagine how if Bini had laid Iraq at the feet of Clinton's Sec. of Defense, William Cohen, how the MSM would have reacted.
Fortunately, I'd finished my coffee, when I read it last night - but the red wine is going to be hard to get out.
Nice, Gary. You forgot my
September 8, 2007 - 19:10 ET by BlondeNice, Gary.
You forgot my all time fave....little Bobby MacNamara. You know, the Sec. Def. after Rummy in Viet Nam <sarc off>.
David Gregory, do you know which damn network you lie for? ~ Uncle Jimbo, @Blackfive
blonde
September 8, 2007 - 20:43 ET by Gary HallBlonde.. naw. I didn't forget MacNamara. Amazing how JFK went to corporate America to get the Sec. of State. Hmm, but the media and now bad Bini boy, only associate all that is bad in the world with corporate America and with conservatives -- but, there is no such connection to JFK, or to Clinton and his pals at Enron. Yeaaach~
I know, Gary
September 8, 2007 - 21:05 ET by BlondeIt's absurd.
When I read "Bini", I thought of the Crocodile Hunter's kid....which is rather apt. She's gotta be smarter than Bini Boy....if he's quoting the dems.
David Gregory, do you know which damn network you lie for? ~ Uncle Jimbo, @Blackfive
Brooks
September 8, 2007 - 19:59 ET by Felicity RandI especially love Brooks' swipe at Chomsky, a god to the Left. I'm sure the people in the control booth at PBS had a twitch fit over that one!
Felicity
September 8, 2007 - 20:03 ET by BlondeChomsky.....LMAO at that one.
Another liberal myth coopted by OBL. Too funny.
David Gregory, do you know which damn network you lie for? ~ Uncle Jimbo, @Blackfive
This is called the no real enemy comment
September 8, 2007 - 20:02 ET by SportPoliticsfrom the left.
This gets translated in the lib mind to " there is no war on terrorism, because terrorism doesn't exist " and - "Osama is one of us " and - " he can't fight the evil Bush regime any better than we can" and- " this proves Iraq is not a war on terror ".
One SHOULD note his admission that he was behind 911. The libbies and lefty kookballs are praying to mother earth noone points it out.
binny boy crazed lefty wacko who got religion - " This innocence of yours is like my innocence of the blood of your sons on the 11th - were I to claim such a thing."
Well, you're wrong again binny boy. We aren't the government directly- we elect them - so our guilt is removed from the troops sent. But YOU are the government by which the 911 mission moved- you are the elected - YOU IGNORANT JACKASS.
( Yes, he is just as stupid as the lefties. )
The forlorn and resigned
September 8, 2007 - 20:55 ET by kevcadThe forlorn and resigned look of Mark Shields' face in the posted pic is just icing on the verbal cake that was accurately hurled by Mr. Brooks in the video.
Start each day with a smile, then get it over with. - W.C. Fields
the tall t'head
September 8, 2007 - 21:03 ET by PKthe verbage in this offering attributed to OBL is somewhat different in form from the last one.
it sounds to me like one of two things.
A. the guy is dead and the words and context have been written by someone who although they were born and raised in the middle east reads liberal blogs and is trying to spout the "party line" just like the old man would have done it but can't keep the westernisms out.
B. OBL is not dead but hiding in an area of western influenced civilization and is slowly being affected by the local vernacular and ideation.
of course i could be totally full of s#$t and the guy is holed up in a cave in tora bora watching satellite tv.
C
2%
September 8, 2007 - 21:09 ET by Shooter1002When he said, 2% tax he blew it. Until then I almost expected to see him on the next debate standing in for Kucinich.
Ouch! Those honest comments are gonna leave a mark.
September 8, 2007 - 21:09 ET by Not AmusedWhen the evil alliance between the jihadists and the American left becomes so obvious that a NYT writer admits to it, it's time for the front runners in the dem field to say, "Oh, crap…"
Let's review: Brooks said that Osama Bin Laden sounds like he's been reading LEFTY blogs. Therefore, the American left and a mass-murdering terrorist are saying the same things, which suggests the American left and a mass-murdering terrorist want the same things.
Can we call them unpatriotic yet?
"...which suggests the
September 8, 2007 - 23:42 ET by Republic1"...which suggests the American left and a mass-murdering terrorist want the same things."
You could not have put it more succinctly. If the last century is any indication, leftism is the only ideology that more fervently wishes (and imposes) death on it's opponents than Islam.
"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him." -Muhammad
What Say You?
September 8, 2007 - 21:27 ET by BarkerThe left-wing terrorist Osama bin Laden (D-Tora Bora) has yet to respond to Brooks' assertion.....
Hold on...
September 9, 2007 - 08:40 ET by BradyWhy are we assuming that Oh' Sama (if said by a lefty, his name should be pronounced with a throaty yearning and a noticable break between the syllables) is spouting democrat talking points rather than the other way around? We have concrete evidence that the ChiComs had (have) a strong influence on the democrat party, (Hsu) is it too big a stretch to believe that Nancy and Harry, or Oh' Bama (see above) and Shrillery take their marching orders from Dr. Evil (sorry Albert), the left's hero?