Funnies piece I've read in WEEKS! (David Brooks, NYT)

[BlueEyedSon]

We need to tell prospective G.O.P. delegates what sort of clothing they cannot wear in New York: pastels, pleated pants, khakis, Docksiders and tassels. If a Republican was seen walking down Riverside Drive wearing his normal outfit — tasseled loafers, no socks, green pants, a festive plaid sports jacket and a faded Hawaiian Tommy Bahama shirt — some New Yorker would come up and ask him if he could bring Paris Hilton out to his home for a reality series.

We also need to tell them what they will need to blend in: dark, rumpled clothing, frayed shopping bags from the Strand, logo-less sweatshirts, Yasir Arafat-style facial hair and those black rectangular glasses that make everybody look like a Dutch architect.

We're going to have to give them phrases they can use in case they are called upon to make elevator small talk. We have to give them examples of sentiments they should avoid ("You're Jewish? Oh, I love your Ariel Sharon!"), and examples of phrases they should use ("Nice weather we're having. Too bad about the climate of McCarthyism settling over the land.")

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/opinion/06BROO.html

[NJCher]

1. I've never seen any republicans dress like that

They wear metal rim glasses (just look at the ones in the Senate or in Congress). Their shirts are usually ill-fitting over a beer gut. Suits strain at the shoulders. Yech, I can't go on. I shudder just thinking about them.


Cher

[thebigidea]

2. god, I hate this guy

Is he supposed to be the new model of "user friendly" conservative? Blech.

[depakid]

3. I hate David Brooks too, but-

I have to admit that he is a good writer and once in a while he does show a sense of humor- something totally alien to the most of the right-wing.

The line about "liberal anhedonia" was classic: the inability to derive pleasure from grossly oversized pieces of machinery!

[Logansquare]

4. Yes the climate of McCarthyism is just a trendy "phrase"

Its so like us elitist liberals to latch on to some trend and work it to death, like being against the Patriot Act, for instance. New Yorkers with or without little square eyeglasses know perfectly well what the Republicans are trying to do to our Constitution.

[OneBlueSky]

5. do you know how many innocent polyesters have to die each year . . .

just to outfit Republicans . . . it's a scandal that's been buried by the national media for years, and just one more example of the Republican diregard for the environment . . .

[KoKo]

7. ROFL! Innocent polyesters.....

:D

[Cocoa]

6. Brooks gets a lot of mileage out of this demographic crap

He wrote a whole book about "BoBos", Bourgeois Bohemians, which are just yuppies painted in a more flattering light. The book pretended to satirize this group, but actually it flattered them, they were the ones who bought it.

Someone should tell Brooks that NYC has a Republican mayor.