“After all these years of endlessly repeating the same tired tropes on the New York Times op-ed page, taking Maureen Dowd’s columns seriously requires a suspension of disbelief that is normally only needed to watch science fiction.”
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Is there anyone on the NYTs op-ed page who doesn’t? Disregarding Krugman, who is special, we have David Brooks and Tom Friedman amongst others. Really a collection of high grade fools.
Friedman’s hopeless too. Gets vaguely tumescent at the thought of Chinese authoritarianism being applied in the West. Brooks has got a case of Stockholm Syndrome. Bob Herbert is a sad indictment of what happens when you give someone with a traumatic brain injury a newspaper column. Gail Collins is a vinegar-soaked harpy. Frankly the whole NYT op-ed section isn’t fit for wrapping fish.
The last decent read on the NYT editorial page was John Tierney, but he’s an actual libertarian. He’s been gone for a while now.
The Gray Lady is generally staffed by people who clearly are very well educated but not very intelligent — indeed, I’d say that characterizes the overwhelming majority of the writers. There are some very notable exceptions — both people who are fiercely competent (John Markoff, say) and outright mountebanks (I will not name who I have in mind there.)
Most, however, are simply fools. Friedman falls into that category — he’s practically a poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
What Perry said. John Tierney is consistently excellent.
Hey, I learned something new today! Next time someone catches me in Pompous Ass Mode and calls me on it, I’ll just say that it’s not my fault: I suffer from Dunning-Kruger Syndrome!
Semi-contra Mr. Metzger, I submit that many of them are probably quite intelligent, but complete fools.
Wisdom and intelligence are not only not synonyms, they don’t appear to be more than vaguely related.
@Sigivald
Perhaps that is because getting wisdom requires hard experience, something that the modern high IQ person can avoid by spending their time in academia, research, writing. or some other low risk, low experience job. And by low risk I mean little risk of actual physical harm, as in broken legs, wounds, or starvation. Such things are memorable teachers.
I think Brooks and Friedman are both pretty thick, in truth. They are the sorts of people who had the right connections in order to get the sort of education that allows them to hide it, frankly.
Maureen Dowd does write occasionally an interesting piece.
Search for “memoirs of a geisha”.
Memoirs of a geisha.
The “Sanction of the Victim” people.
Stop reading the collectivist rag called the “New York Tiimes”.
Someone has to, Paul – know thy enemy and all that:-)
Good science fiction starts from the world as it actually exists and plausibly extrapolates into the future. Please refrain from comparing this endeavor to anything that appears in the NYT Op-Eds. Thank you.
… plausibly extrapolates into the future …
If you through out all the SF with faster than light travel you won’t be left with much.