{"id":1352,"date":"2008-06-04T12:54:49","date_gmt":"2008-06-04T17:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/1352"},"modified":"2008-06-04T12:54:49","modified_gmt":"2008-06-04T17:54:49","slug":"a-separate-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/1352","title":{"rendered":"A Separate Reality…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kagro X over at KOS catches David Brooks in usual form<\/a> …babbling away about how democrats are elitists who know nothing about how the common folk live…unlike, well Brooks of course…\n<\/p>\n

\n

How big of a douchebag is David Brooks?<\/p>\n

He’s such a big douchebag that he tries to criticize Barack Obama as not being an oh-so-regular guy (just like the tortoise shell spectacled and pink necktied drip Brooks is, of course) by saying:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

[H]e doesn‘t seem like a guy who can go into an Applebee‘s salad bar and people think he fits in naturally there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Only problem? David Brooks has apparently never stepped out of the limo and actually gone into <\/em>an Applebees. Because they don’t have <\/em>salad bars.<\/p>\n

Dumbass.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Brooks is an expert in how the middle America that exists only in the middle of that empty space between his two ears Really lives…<\/p>\n

\n

Brooks, an agile and engaging writer, was doing what he does best, bringing sweeping social movements to life by zeroing in on what Tom Wolfe called "status detail," those telling symbols — the Weber Grill, the open-toed sandals with advanced polymer soles — that immediately fix a person in place, time and class. Through his articles, a best-selling book, and now a twice-a-week column in what is arguably journalism’s most prized locale, the New York Times op-ed page, Brooks has become a must-read, charming us into seeing events in the news through his worldview.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There’s just one problem: Many of his generalizations are false…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

… <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
<\/blockquote>\n

As I made my journey, it became increasingly hard to believe that Brooks ever left his home. <\/strong>“On my journeys to Franklin County, I set a goal: I was going to spend $20 on a restaurant meal. But although I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu—steak au jus, ‘slippery beef pot pie,’ or whatever—I always failed. I began asking people to direct me to the most expensive places in town. They would send me to Red Lobster or Applebee’s,” he wrote. “I’d scan the menu and realize that I’d been beaten once again. I went through great vats of chipped beef and ‘seafood delight’ trying to drop $20. I waded through enough surf-and-turfs and enough creamed corn to last a lifetime. I could not do it.”<\/p>\n

Taking Brooks’s cue, I lunched at the Chambersburg Red Lobster and quickly realized that he could not have waded through much surf-and-turf at all. The “Steak and Lobster” combination with grilled center-cut New York strip is the most expensive thing on the menu. It costs $28.75. “Most of our checks are over $20,” said Becka, my waitress. “There are a lot of ways to spend over $20.”<\/p>\n

The easiest way to spend more than $20 on a meal in Franklin County is to visit the Mercersburg Inn, which boasts “turn-of-the-century elegance.” I had a $50 prix-fixe dinner, with an entrée of veal medallions, served with a lump-crab and artichoke tower, wild-rice pilaf and a sage-caper-cream sauce. Afterward, I asked the inn’s proprietors, Walt and Sandy Filkowski, if they had seen Brooks’s article. They laughed.<\/p>\n

I called Brooks to see if I was misreading his work. I told him about my trip to Franklin County, and the ease with which I was able to spend $20 on a meal. He laughed. “I didn’t see it when I was there, but it’s true, you can get a nice meal at the Mercersburg Inn,” he said. I said it was just as easy at Red Lobster. “That was partially to make a point that if Red Lobster is your upper end?” he replied, his voice trailing away. “That was partially tongue-in-cheek, but I did have several mini-dinners there, and I never topped $20.”<\/p>\n

–Sasha Issenberg, Boo-Boos in Paradise<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’m pinching the caption on this Brooks photo from KOS because it’s so deadpan on…<\/p>\n

  
\n <\/p>\n

\n
<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Excuse me, you’re out of low fat ranch…<\/em> Oh, I’m sorry,
\nI thought you worked here, Mr. Regular Fellow!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

  
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kagro X over at KOS catches David Brooks in usual form …babbling away about how democrats are elitists who know nothing about how the common folk live…unlike, well Brooks of course… How big of a douchebag is David Brooks? He’s such a big douchebag that he tries to criticize Barack Obama as not being an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,19,60],"class_list":["post-1352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-our-feckless-news-media","tag-the-jackass-chronicles","tag-the-noise-machine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}