JOLLY DAYS

The Big Salad, er, Discussion

If you subscribe to David Brooks' podcast, this week you can hear a one and a half hour discussion with Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, and a NYT editorial page bigwig, along with Brooks. Although this discussion does have a morbid fascination, I was only able to take about ten minutes; even at the beginning it felt unstructured, not in the sense of being free, just slovenly. They really weren't there to discuss issues, with the possible exception of Brooks. That's probably the fault of the host, the editorial writer, I think his name was Andy Rosenthal — must be the son of Abe Rosenthal. He just mighta got his job from his daddy's connections.

Personality was at the fore so let's look at that. Dowd was right into it, with sarcastic, disparaging remarks, which were warmly received with cackles by a segment of the audience. If the subject was changed to “blacks” or “gays” the truly poisonous nature of her cant would be apparent to any audience. But she stays under the radar by solely aiming at PC targets. Cackles are a familiar, denotative response, of certain creatures in the political zoo — you know them by their sound coloring. After Dowd's initial display she blessedly remained quiet for the rest of the segment to which I listened. Dowd, careerist and polemicist, was really waiting for her book signing anyway, which was to follow the fest. The woman presents as twerp pundit — Dowd seems to have nothing to say. Frank Rich was drifty, seemed to quickly want to focus on the horror of the Bush, how it is all over, all over for the George. The only adult in play was Brooks, who as often happens with him, wins by default. He is just a quiet serious guy, but able to laugh and enjoy things — you seldom feel his ego is on the line. He made some considered points, immediately making the venue feel more substantial — but there were no real takers and entropy quickly took over. These were people all on a different wave length, thrown together ineptly, like an overturned gift basket at a hotel. It hardly seemed it could be worth one hour and thirty minutes of your life, but who knows…maybe later on it was really really great.