David Brooks’ Ivy League ejaculations
Compare:
“I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”
– William F. Buckley, Jr.
And contrast:
Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law), looks on proudly. Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford D. Phil.).
The domestic policy team will be there, too, including Jason Furman (Harvard, Harvard Ph.D.), Austan Goolsbee (Yale, M.I.T. Ph.D.), Blair Levin (Yale, Yale Law), Peter Orszag (Princeton, London School of Economics Ph.D.) and, of course, the White House Counsel Greg Craig (Harvard, Yale Law)…
… Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus. Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists. They typically served in the Clinton administration and then, like Cincinnatus, retreated to the comforts of private life — that is, if Cincinnatus had worked at Goldman Sachs, Williams & Connolly or the Brookings Institution. So many of them send their kids to Georgetown Day School, the posh leftish private school in D.C. that they’ll be able to hold White House staff meetings in the carpool line.
And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons (not to mention the incursion of a French-style government dominated by highly trained Enarchs), I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition.
– Smarty pants/panting smarty David Brooks, NYT, 11/21/08
Get a room, David. Your public displays of Obam-affection are bordering on criminal indecent exposure and gross lewdness.
Ew.
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What’s “Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford D. Phil.)?” Dr. Phil? I think I might know someone who has that degree…
I just threw up a little in my mouth.
There are two kinds of respect: positional and personal. Positional respect deals with the position or office. It goes with the territory. Personal respect is not easily given. It must be earned. I have all kinds of respect for the position of President of the United States. But Obama has done absolutely nothing to warrant any personal respect from me. On the contrary, he seems to have done everything he can do to warrant my contempt.
he’s the face of the current GOP. why should I ever vote for people like him, or bonds, or mccain or grahmnesty???
sickening.
I realize I’m old fashioned, but someone needs to tell this guy that public displays of affection are not appropriate.
As for these genius politicians being so much smarter than your average media Joe/Jane, yeah, so what? I’ve got a Sheltie smarter than they, too.
“Change we can believe in”
Methinks Barakadoodledoo needs a new dictionary. The ones at Haaavard are broken. My dictionary says “to make different” and I’ve seen all these people before. hmmmmmmmmmmm
Dang!!! It must be soft porn day at NYT! Brooks must have needed a cigarette after all that lovin. I, on the other hand, need a really hot shower with lots of soap. Blech.
Since when did smart equal wise?
I feel…icky!
They may be smart but when they’re in their rut, they look and sound just like any other animal.
Brooks is forgetting WFB – would we rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston phone book or 2,000 Ivy League graduates?
Other than the Boston phone book may include Barney Frank, I’ll take my chances with any city’s phone book.
That list of acedemia elites, now that’s some real oogedy boogedy!
How lucky we peons and mortals are to have such a glittering array of arrogant, self-important, self-satisfied, smug, educated-above-their-intelligence elitists like Obama and Brooks presiding over the destruction of this great republic.
I mean the poor Soviets had to make do with a seminary drop out to destroy their nation.
I’ll sleep better knowing experts are in charge of destroying health care, defense, national security, the environment, the legal framework, the economy and society in general.
If America’s power and influence in the world can survive unscathed four long, tedious years of these three, then our nation will have proven its greatness to be truly beyond the reproach of any skeptic! Especially Susan Rice – she’s an anathema to pro-American foreign policy.
Bingo…… Would anyone characterize Hillary Clinton as someone who is wise and possessing good judgement?
People in Mr. Brooks profession above all require the ability to be dispassionate. He flunks, BIG TIME.
It’s been my experience that the more formal education one has, the less common sense they have.
On of the dumbest people I’ve ever known was a guy that had a BS in Engineering and a PHD in stastics. Very intelligent and dumb as a brick at the same time.
I remember seeing on Fox during the campaign (O’Reilly I think) where they were debating the qualifications of Gov Palin vs Senator Obama. This lefty reporter actually said that the deciding factor was that he went to an Ivy League school and she went to a State University. I don’t know why the conservative didn’t mention that GW has an Ivy League education. Maybe that’s why we lost.
Btw, David Brooks is the epitome of an odious liberal brown-noser. He should be shunned by all RNC-GOP officials and future candidates.
As a former Naval enlisted man, I can testify that some of the stupidest bastards I have ever met had degrees from Ivy League schools.
it used to be that the ivy league gave us officers for the military and cia spooks as well as trustfund babies good for nothing except the state department. my how times change. none of these dorks has ever had a job that didn’t get it’s money from the government in some fashion. begging for grants, the new business of the u.s. first agrarian, then manufacturing, then service/telecom, now grant proposals.
I wonder if Obama will turn to the former Clinton administration for his selection of Surgeon General…
Dare I say the name?
You are so right. Education may give you knowledge(or for the past 40 years, indoctrination, if you will), but not necessarily intelligence nor common sense.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
I actually had an engineer from Johns-Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory tell me “we are unable to ascertain the system’s reliability due to the fact it will not stay powered up.”
Isn’t Dr. Kavorkian available?
so i guess if you can’t afford such a school you’re just a retard…for not finding some Saudi prince to finance your education.
having been in business for over thirty years dealing with academia, i can attest they live such insular lives that in their field of endeavor, they may have an iq of 150, but take them out of their particular field of expertise, and most of them are clueless. their moms still have to dress them in the morning. it’s frightening how normal day to day situations are completely beyond their grasp. “well how do i pay for you to come to my lab and fix my widget?” DUH.
John Adams went to Harvard and Thomas Jefferson went to William & Mary. Both were lawyers and farmers. They knew manure when they saw it. The current and incoming occupants of the White House and Capitol Hill don’t and at least 48% of the American voters did and 52% did not.
As much as Brooks and the other Obama syncopants wish it, the election of Obama is not a return to Camelot. And the references to the “Best and the Brightest” by Brooks and company is ignorant at best. In his book, Halberstam refers to the “Best and the Brightest” not in noble or admiring terms, but as proof of their vanity and hubris which led to the Vietnam War. Hasn’t anybody who makes these references actualy read the book? I doubt it.
Er, David, didn’t you mean ‘Eunachs’.
…I will be too – when he transitions OUT of office with his head down, his boxes full of excuses, and his group of diploma-dopes trailing behind him.
Wait. Doesn’t George W. Bush have an undergraduate degree from Yale and a graduate degree from Harvard? Yet, isn’t he supposed to be the dumbest president in American history?
I’m confused.
Smarter than the average bear, Boo Boo.
That’s the way I feel every time I see that Photoshop of Hilbama.
Only counts with a ‘D’ after your name and not and ‘R’. Trying to figure out if D means dumba$$ and R has come to mean retarded or retreater?
Gag – what has the “best and brightest” brought us?
Barney Frank – Harvard
Al Gore – Harvard
Chuck Schumer – Harvard
I could go on but you get the picture.
What these over educated control freaks lack is plain old common sense and humility.
What WarEagle (#12) said…
That fawning Ode to The One gave me the heebie-jeebies.
D.Phil = Ph.D that was awarded by Oxford or Cambridge university. These universities take pleasure in doing weird things like that, like awarding a BA (bachelors of arts) for science degrees, etc. I guess if you’re a thousand year old institution, you’re allowed such quirks.
Anyway, wasn’t George Bush from Harvard? Is the Left going to now hold him in high regard?
Since when did “Ivy League” is “smart?”
It’s most ironic that the Ive Leagues schools were ALL founded in the 1600-1700′s primarily to train ministers of the gospel and to help evangelize the eastern territories…..my,my,my how times have changed!!!!
wrcnossen said (#8):
Case in point: General Grant — bottom of his class in school but the only general who understood that he didn’t have to win battles to win the war.
OTOH — Our current administration is full of people with no learning, no wisdom, and no particular interest in good government (heckuvajob Brownie).
If Yale had taught Bill Clinton to keep his zipper up on the job (the wisdom thing), he would have been a great president.
Even so, he clearly was better at governing than the present crew. Witness their confused incoherent reaction to our current crisis. Americans voted for quality. Obama is delivering.
*ivy*
Elitists, ignorant snobs.
Even a graduate of their esteemed institutions isn’t their “peer” unless they’re also a liberal.
These people sicken me.
WarEagle82 said:
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
When I heard someone went to Harvard, I used to think, “Wow, they must be really smart.”
Now that experience has made me wiser, when I hear someone went to Harvard, I think, “Wow, they must be really liberal.”
…….a bunch of “sexual intellectuals”
i.e., f*&king know-it-alls!
First of all, D. Phil is a doctorate of philosophy, the english version of today’s masters degree or Ph.D. Oxford generally doesn’t give doctorates or masters like the American system, as I understand (I might be wrong…).
As for a “return to Camelot,” I’ve got to say it’s ENTIRELY a return to Camelot: a dark-ages, feudalistic, collectivist, totalitarian, irrational autocracy where the rulers are chosen by personal relationships to the demogogue in charge and the (arbitrarily and irrationally chosen) powerful elite.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out the necrotic decay of the institution of the Ivy league. University of Chicago (non-ivy) and Harvard (THE ivy) have basically the same standings; their law schools jockey with each other, the B-schools battle, and the undergrads are basically the same in terms of SAT, GPA, etc. HOWEVER, roughly 10-15% of each Harvard undergrad class graduate with a 4.0. Roughly 0.0005% of U of C grads have a 4.0 (one every two graduating classes). Think maybe there’s a little disconnect from reality in Harvard? But it’s supported by the “traditional” elite; you can get a job anywhere with a Harvard degree, regardless of your intelligence. This is especially true in “Big Media” (aka MSM), the Ivory Tower, and government, where like hires like and competency, rationality, and intelligence have nothing to do with job retention. Thus, note the decline in Harvard MBA’s on the boards of Fortune 500 companies; in the 50′s, they made up roughly 50% of the boards. Now, they make up roughly 20%. Contrast this to NYT, where the Harvard School of Journalism is basically their minor league training team.
Best and Brightest comes to mind.
Buckle up, we could be in for a bumpy ride.
ps.
We won’t have to endure Brooks much longer as the NYT has assumed room temperature.
Many of our best presidents didn’t go to fancy pants institutions.
–greenfairie (University of Missouri, Catholic University)
Proof, please, for both charges. Obama’s reticence on our economy is not sagacious policy, but a sign that he is unsure and afraid to act.
Virtually every president since Reagan has been an Ivy League grad. It has run the country into the ground in 20 years and Obama and his “recycled Clintonistas” will accelerate the pace.
We should be out recruiting “Eureka College” grads to run things.
You guys really hate fancy book learnin’ here. It’s just fascinating to watch.
Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Alinsky, Ayers) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Newly Proud), looks on proudly. Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Foster, Brown, et al), …
No, we hate worshipping fancy book learnin’. I done me some fancy book learnin’ myself…
BTW – I know an actual network reporter and from that sample size of one I can tell you that being smarter than a reporter falls into the fencepost range…
Huh? You always have to win the last battle.
Did I miss the column where George W. Bush (Yale, Harvard MBA), Dick Cheney ( University of Wyoming, whoops), Condi Rice (University of Denver, whoops again; Notre Dame, Masters PoliSci), and all the others were smart?
Oh, wait, I see the problem: Other than Dubya, there aren’t any Ivy League schools in the top ranks. Unless you’re from the Eastern elite academies, you are a non-person. Yeesh.
No, you pretentious snob! We hate PRETENTIOUS SNOBS.
I’ll hold up my education against virtually any ignoramus like Al Gore who barely graduated one college and flunked out or dropped out of several more.
IT IS WHAT YOU LEARN AND NOT WHERE YOU LEARN. But, you haven’t figured that out either.
No, in the leftist world you win by surrendering. You don’t have to win any battles that way, even the last one!
Yeah, but according to the liberals, our current president, graduate of Yale, is a moron. Go figure.
The ridiculousness of Brook’s whole commentary is really very amusing, LOL!
The illogic of lib arguments make my head hurt. I understand that they live in Bizarro World (Superman comic reference) but here on Earth 1, it was Lee that surrendered.
Yale and Harvard.
The guy near the top of his class…
WarEagle82 ,
They also tell me that lgm is a teacher!
Can anyone still credibly think Brooks is a conservative at this point?
Just go away, David. And take Frum, Noonan, Parker and the other credentials-first, knowledge second elitist snobs with you.
He may have gotten that part right.
No one’s doubting your educational superiority to Sarah Palin. But you’re getting off topic…
Ronald Reagan summed up the Ivy League mindset best with the following assessment:
“High-IQ dimwits.”
But it should surprise no one that Hope-a-Dope is resurrecting washed-up Clintonoids to populate his coming regime. Remember that this is a guy for whom the coming four years in the White House will be the longest he’s ever held any job.
He has no long-term associates to draw from, other than Wright, Rezko, Ayers, Dohrn, and his America-despising ingrate wife … open and unapologetic bigots, criminals and unreconstructed terrorists are hardly cabinet-level material to draw from.
Otherwise, he’s leap-frogged politically with such speed that those around him have been mere acquaintances at best, or “People I’ve stepped on on my way to the top” at worst.
I guess that’s why he called off the siege at Vicksburg and decided not to send Sherman to take Atlanta then. Thanks for imparting that bit of knowledge on us – go take your place in line next to Brooks now, Mr. Booklearning.
None of these “intellectuals” would be able to answer the question from Joe the Plumber.
I wonder how many have a successful track record in starting and/or running businesses?? (As opposed to memorizing and then regurgitating facts.)
On November 21st, 2008 at 1:04 pm, nyk said:
Don’t you mean Obama – he still hasn’t released his transcript, you know.
not to mention, the VP-elect is mysteriously missing from the list. I guess we’re not supposed to notice.
Read Thomas Sowell’s important piece on why “Intellectuals” are actually know-nothings when it comes to matters of real life.
Brooks! Dude! Get a room! No one wants to see that!
How many of these “smart” people have ever had a real job, had to meet a payroll, or been responsible for the lives and safety of their subordinates? Hmmm?
ECS
Speaking from experience, when your cubicle is next to a fax/copy machine, it’s pretty easy to figure out who are really the “smart” ones vs. the “dumb” ones. Degrees mean nothing when you’re out in the real world doing ordinary tasks. The sanctimonious MBA earners could never get through a simple fax or copy process without asking for help.
There is nothing wrong with “fancy book learnin’,” nyuk. A classical education, rather than the new wave crap that comprises the curricula at most institutions of “higher learning” these days, is the mark of a well-rounded gentleman. The problem is that most of the “Elitists, ignorant snobs” don’t have anything to back up their edjumakashuns. They’ve never had real jobs. They’ve never served in the military. They’ve never built anything except their resumes.
What’s fascinating is watching folks like Brooks and you salivate over people’s educations just because they believe in the same misguided crap that you do.
ECS
And you’re the governor of what state, exactly? How can you see the sky, looking down your nose like that? You are a snob of the worst sort, the kind that doesn’t have anything to be snobbish about.
ECS
Very well said.
I’m reminded of quotes such as “much learning has made thee mad”. And the one from the book we shall not mention (Romans 1:22) “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools”
Speaking of Messiah cabinet selections, ivy league educated or otherwise, Lord Obama might well have picked as AG old Ramsey Clarke (if still alive) or any one of the Somali pirates. Nothing would shock me. Or maybe his Worship could have brought Janet “Waco” Reno out of retirement.
Ugh.
On November 21st, 2008 at 11:55 am, lgm said:
Case in point: General Grant — bottom of his class in school but the only general who understood that he didn’t have to win battles to win the war.
little girlie man…
You really miss the point, as usuual. Grant understood that his army outnumbered Lee’s so much trhat he didn’;t have to win every battle to win the war. He also understood, however, that he did indeed have to FIGHT the battles…
Tы полная чайников.
Du bist ein Gesamtidiot und ganz verrückt.
Show me Barry Obama’s transcripts before you start on anyone else.
Sure. Al those “elite” Ivy leaguers are doing real well on wall street…those Lehman guys, Bear Stearns guys…sure. All went to the “BIG SCHOOLS”. How are they doing?
When an intellectual was told by someone, “Your beard is now coming in,” he went to the rear-entrance and waited for it.
Another intellectual asked what he was doing. Once he heard the whole story, he said: “I’m not surprised that people say we lack common sense. How do you know that it’s not coming in by the other gate?”
flmom,
Sorry but Brooks meant Enarchs. That is a little inside baseball to ensure that the bien pensants who can get it are made to feel better than the ignorant and unwashen mob. The French government is run by graduates of a handful of elite schools. The gold standard is the École nationale d’administration (ENA), which is everything the Kennedy School of Government aspires to be. There are several other Grandes écoles, such as the innocously named École Normale Supérieure (ENS) which may look like a teacher’s college but is also a fast track to wealth and power.
And yet I grow more disgusted with the thought of an Obama Administration every day, still wondering when someone will tell me this whole thing ws just one bad joke.
See, “You Don’t Have to be in Who’s Who to Know What’s What,” by Sam Levenson
max said (#77):
You guys are so perpetually angry and argumentative that you have to disagree with me even when I’m on your side. Case in point:
Childish insult, like the childish photoshop jobs that get posted here.
Another pointless insult.
Exactly agreeing with my point.
Still in agreement.
Let us hope hope and pray that should Al Quaeda strike the NYT building in New York City the cleaning staff has left the building for the day. As the Ministry of Truth will be established early next years independent newspapers will be redundant.
Starbucks can they replace the New York Times with Rush, Hannity and other talk radio shows.
And nyk is bragging about his education? Does he do anything useful with it? My cousin never went to college-apprenticed as a plumber and now owns one of the biggest commercial water treatment services companies in the world.
HE impresses me. Barack and Michelle Obama went to fine schools yet I gave several times more to Charity than they have. Undergraduate Arizona State- Masters UC Berkley. (I was the one with a haircut) I impress me.
Ok smart guy, exactly what has he delivered?
Is that down the street from Berkeley?
The biggest shopping day in the history of firearms in the US.
I have heard that Obama is delivering. In fact you can’t buy a pitch fork in any Home Depot NEAR Washington, DC. The manure around here is nearly a mile deep already and he won’t get sworn in for almost two months!
I wonder if medical insurance covers that leg problem for Chris Matthews?
For all the affirmative action education BO has gotten, he hasn’t EVER had a real job; community organizing, board member and running for office comprize an entertaining resume. To him, sucess is having things handed to him rather than working hard. Now he’s been handed the White House. For the first time in his adult life, he will actually have to get something done or he can kiss a second term goodbye.
Awww..little poo-butt feels picked on. Quick…go tell the yard duty before she runs off for a smoke break. that will show us, you betcha.
To err is human but to really screw up takes an Ivy League Degree.
Rush refers to these folks, in mocking tone, as “The Wizards of Smart.”
Probably because to believe a bunch of overpampered legacy hacks are the right lot to lead America is ridiculous.
I hate to break this but it looks like Hillary is accepting SoS. Obama is delivering his own undoing, as well a high drama for the next 4 years. I cannot imagine what he is thinking. Without even going into her foreign policy credentials he should be able to see what a disaster this can/will be for him. This nomination just about completes the forming of new Clinton administration.
lgm – I have to hand it to you – that made me laugh.
Americans as a whole couldn’t tell you a single thing Obama stands for. Americans as a whole, couldn’t tell you what Obama’s previous job is/was. Americans can on the other hand tell you who got voted off of “Dancing with the Stars” and the batting average of three players on “their team”. I don’t think quality had anything to do with it. Secondly – Obama is delivering? Delivering exactly what I ask?
And now for the interns…
If this is the “change” we can expect then Barry O should have just given the nomination to Hillary.
Obama IS stupid for offering and Clinton IS stupid for accepting. This is the biggest “lose-lose” proposition in American politics since Carter-Mondale!
How in the world is Hillary qualified to be SecState? Maybe IF she had acutally been shot at in Bosnia….
Why would Obama invite these two snakes into his administration? Does he NOT remember Vince Foster?
This eclipses “ignorant” and goes straight to “STUPID” on both parts.
For goodness sakes, “Keep the change!”
You don’t see anyone in the firearms industry asking for a bailout, do you?
I’m not convinced Brooks didn’t mean all that sarcastically. Checked on his own education which is a degree in history from University of Chicago.
p.s. I suggest everyone go to the full article link at the beginning of the thread. Brooks appears envious of the educations of all these people but his real reasons for applauding the selections are about other characteristics.
haha… Alohaguy, you are ON today.