DL fave David Brooks laments $78 airport meal - thinks Americans identify with him

I wonder what brand of scotch he drinks.

The burger is basic.

I guarantee those drinks were over half the cost.

I paid ... $15? for a Jack & Coke at DIA not too long ago. That picture does look like a double, so two of those is easily $30-$40.

Ah blame the crooked Biden Crime Family!!

The restaurant confirms it was mostly booze.

Look at the way he took off the lettuce and tomato and "seasoned" the burger with three ketchup packets.

LOL

such poor judgment

This guy is such a tool. But he's certainly playing his part in the demise of democracy in this country.

I flew out of Logan this summer. I had a night flight and ate dinner at one of the terminal restaurants. I don't drink and just had soda. My bill -- for a cheeseburger and fries -- was close to $30.

tHankSH Biden!

He's a liar

He was on the Rudy Giuliani four drinks tour.

Considering how ill-considered, that tweet is, that glass on the table may not have been his first. The mainstream media is pouncing all over it now.

I can't believe he's only 62. He's look like an old for 20 years.

Seriously r5! What I took away was David Brooks has babytaste.

He has to pick off the vegetables from his burger and drown it in ketchup. That's childlike. That offends me way more than him spending 40 dollars on a scotch.

The new special interest group: alcoholics.

Seriously R13-I guess I have "baby taste" too-hate veggies on my burger, and I "drown" mine in ketchup as well.

Since "I'm only an ignorant flower girl" can someone please tell me who this entitled jerk is? Seriously, I've never of this idiot in my life. Is he some kind of political journalist?

R15, he’s a conservative political columnist for the NYTimes. If you are just going along leading your life, you would not have heard of him.

Thanks R16-Since I haven't read the NYTimes in more than 20 years, I guess I wouldn't have heard of him. I take it he's a Trump loving MAGAT who fills his column with Anti-Biden propaganda?

Since when does the NEW WOKE TIMES have conservative political columnists anyway?

David Brooks was once the liberals’ favorite conservative, slightly left of George Will, in the first decade of the 21st century. That was until his personal life got messy.

In his late fifties he’s divorced his wife of three decades, who had converted to Judaism for him, to marry a young woman in her late twenties who was a Christian and worked for Christian causes. After a whirlwind romance they married and he converted to Christianity.

Ever since the. he has lost many positions as a commentator for various organizations. The only place I see him now is the PBS Newshour.

Love my David Brooks. Pro-gay and smart. I'm guessing he took the lettuce and tomato off the burger to eat as a side salad.

Let’s never forget this gem of a column:

“Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named "Padrino" and "Pomodoro" and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.”

He is King Douche.

I hope that friend punched and deleted Brooks after he published that column, R20. That is even CUNTIER than DL usually is.

That is beyond parody @ R20. I'm sure his friend with only a high school degree was grateful he was there to help her decipher the Taco Bell menu and order without freezing up.

[quote]Since when does the NEW WOKE TIMES have conservative political columnists anyway?

Are you for real with this bullshit? Half of their editorial board is MAGA. The other half is bootlicking neoliberals.

Seriously, are you really this stupid? David Brooks has been on the editorial board for 20 years.

He's a shitstain

"She's a woman, Ernest. A woman...from Newark, for God's sakes".

Smart? Look at that tweet r19. It so so clueless and out of touch, complaining about the price of your meal in an major international airport when most of the bill was top shelf whiskey.

Yes, finger on the pulse of Americans he has.

Most middle class Americans wouldn't go to the airport on an empty stomach expecting to find an economical, full meal at an airport restaurant. Most wouldn't order a double of top shelf liquor, either. Most non-elite, bottom 98% Americans would either eat at home, pack snacks, and stick with water, or "splurge" on a fast food meal, or just "make do," likely by skipping a meal entirely or just snacking with what's affordable to them.

David Brooks is an out-of-touch moron who doesn't understand social media or normal people.

David Brooks is a dumb person's idea of what a smart person sounds like.

Old tweets are resurfacing on X

“I can’t believe I had to spend $30 at the grocery store just to make bologna sandwiches. Thanks, Obama”.

“Dinner with David Brooks”

The restaurant clapped back

Thanks for posting that, r20. I had completely forgotten about that column until I came upon your post. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it was discovered the friend was fictitious and based on his stereotypes of people without college educations. In the very least, I hope it was not true. Could you imagine the person picking up the paper and reading that characterizaton?

I didn't realize David Brooks was Jewish. It reminds me of a story where Mel Brooks, Albert Brooks, and James L. Brooks were talking, and realized that had all anglicized their names to Brooks.

That burger looks good.

Brooks is a jackass. He likes to try and come off as “reasonable,” but he really isn’t. Russert used to love to have him on MTP during the Bu$h years where he was just an apologist for whatever Cheney came up with. I had no clue that he was a drunk like fellow conservative Peggy Noonan.

He does come across as a shitty little liar and full of himself. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d do something gross and self-defeating like jerk off during a zoom call like Toobin.

Assholes like that just can’t help themselves.

What's most shocking/amusing and speaks either to his mental deterioration or alcoholism (or both) is that he somehow expected that a family of four Americans would be expected to spend $360+ for a cheap airport meal they would never had ordered to begin with. How many child-friendly families of for order so many double scotches? I mean, sure more would to stave off screaming, traveling kids, but $320 on drinks is just totally LOCO, as he is.

Wasn't there a Sbarro?

Oh dear he got sprung by the restaurant! 80% of his bill was the bar tab. What a drunken whore.

Reamed as a cheap shit by Joyce Carol Oates:

"bar bill: $66. food bill: $12. tip: $0 N Y Times expense account)

There's a half-dead lime tree on my back deck and if the NYT hired it they would get more insightful columns than they do from David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Bret Stephens, Pamela Paul (Bret's ex-wife) or Maureen Dowd. There is so much I like about the NYT, and I have subscribed to it for years, but the dimwit opinion columnists are a mystery to me. Who thinks they're worth reading?

Brooks is prime example of how the wrong, least competent people rise in life.

I don't mind the NYT experiments to find "balance" or simply a braid range of perspective in their editorial views, but why carry on with this old fuck* year after year after year as he writes favorable pieces on think tanks and then takes money from them? As he feathers his best with a full time commentator on whatever for whomever will pay him?

His writing grows more stodgy and tired and predictable by each of the 20 years he's worked at the NYT. He should have been cycled out if that job 15 years ago.

The story about a Tweet about a $78 hamburger and a light handful of fries might have been a "Yeah. Right. Whatever. Eating at the airport can be expensive and for nothing really. Everybody knows.". But he's so stewed in his own juices and whisky that he either overlooked the fact that the two drinks were 80% of his bill and the burger and fries a surprisingly modest $17. Or does he think that all intelligent college-educated men have two top brand whisky doubles with every meal and snack?

Fucking nervy to point to a $78 airport meal, $61 of which was whisky. And on his NYT expense account. No wonder he has no idea about the economy.

I love that he just brazenly left the glass of whiskey in the shot that he tweeted. Truly doesn't give a fuck.

^Reminds me of Giuliani appearances on cable news during the pandemic. He'd have a glass of scotch in camera view during interviews. I assume there were plenty of rumors then, but he either thought it was normal professional white guy behavior or he just didn't GAF.

I wonder if Brooks has commented yet. What could he possibly say?

Who among the Times opinion columnists is pro-Trump?

Funny, years ago the Boston Globe fired Mike Barnicle for making shit up.

Apparently the same standards don't apply at the NYT.

Op, since when did Dave become a DL favorite? His name is rarely mentioned here.

Over 600 comments dripping with derision at the WaPo.

[QUOTE]that’s been viewed more than 34 million times on the platform as of early Friday.

[QUOTE]Brooks, who has not publicly responded or posted to social media since Wednesday, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning. A Times spokesperson declined to comment. SSP America spokesperson Lana Cramer said in a statement that the company was “disappointed to see Mr. Brooks’ tweet.”

[QUOTE]“We always strive to deliver a good meal and great service, and we hope he’ll experience that the next time he eats at one of our restaurants,” Cramer said. “We wish him safe future travels.”

[QUOTE]The restaurant has capitalized on the attention of the viral post, boasting on Facebook: “We’re the topic of America right now!” Hallett has also made a new meal available to customers: the “D Brooks Special.” Instead of paying $78, customers can get a burger, fries and a double shot of whiskey for $17.78.

We have discussed Brooks and his hypocrisy run amok here over the years, r47, and the totally baffling lack of self-awareness. He's a fave in the same sense Maureen Dowd is -- we like to bitch about them. I specifically remember posts about the incidents and column described by r18 and r20. There's also a current thread with over a hundred posts about a recent column of his about America becoming nastier and less civilized. Haven't delved into that one yet.

Well, I’ve been put in the corner for being so ignorant. I must have missed those threads. Thank you for sharing, R49.

David Brooks is an imbecile. I have never heard him say anything intelligent and I'm not judging him as a rabid Lefty. Whenever he's a guest on a political show he comes across as the most perplexingly dim-witted simpleton.

[quote] Since when does the NEW WOKE TIMES have conservative political columnists anyway?

Brooks is a 𝙩𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚. A lesser David Gergin. The sort the media use to claim they show the readers "both sides" while he agrees with nearly every significant NY Times liberal position.

He endorsed Hillary for president and earlier nearly came in his pants for Obama.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging,” Brooks recently told me, “but usually when I talk to senators, while they may know a policy area better than me, they generally don’t know political philosophy better than me. I got the sense he knew both better than me.”

That first encounter is still vivid in Brooks’s mind. “𝗜 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳–𝘄𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘁,” 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝘀, “𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜’𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗮) 𝗵𝗲’𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯) 𝗵𝗲’𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗮 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁.” In the fall of 2006, two days after Obama’s The Audacity of Hope hit bookstores, Brooks published a glowing Times column. The headline was “Run, Barack, Run.”…

This is news to people? I mean go into any shop in the airport and a bottle of diet coke and a bag of nuts is 20 dollars. Always has been. It's why I pay for lounge access via my credit card.

Hi 23-R17 here. No reason to get nasty and name call, simply because I asked what I considered to be a seemingly logical question, regarding the NY Times with it's well earned reputation of being left leaning and woke, having so-called "conservative" columnists on their editorial board.

As I mentioned, I haven't read the NYTIMES in more than 20 years, probably closer to 25. I honestly don't remember being an avid follower of their editorial page, so I do apologize for my lack of knowledge in this area.

Said lack of knowledge however, does not mean that I am "stupid". Again, I asked a question/ expressed an opinion which you took issue with. I might have been "ignorant" of your claim that "half their editorial staff is MAGA", but at the risk of repeating myself, that doesn't make me "stupid".

Enjoy your weekend.

[quote]No reason to get nasty and name call

This is the Datalounge. There is ALWAYS reason to get nasty and name call.

Carry on, r23.

If he was just going to take it out, why didn't he order his burger without salad in the first place?

Thanks, R55. Cheers, mate.

Hey R54? Go fuck yourself, and have a terrible fucking weekend.

Newark Airport is a food desert. They don't have a Chik fil a.

[quote] If he was just going to take it out, why didn't he order his burger without salad in the first place?

Who knows? Maybe he thought that's how the little people do it and it would make him like totally relatable.

Hey R23- Hostile much?

Your beautifully phrased, highly sophisticated, stunningly original, well thought response to me at R57 speaks volumes about your enormously high levels of maturity, wit and intelligence.

R55-Perhaps you feel that posting on DL automatically gives one the right, or even the "obligation", to be nasty and name call. I would venture a guess that the majority of Dataloungers don't agree with you.

He should be on the PBS News Hour tonight. Maybe he’ll explain. That musta been a shot of Johnny Walker Blue in his glass. Didn’t know they had the Blue in airports.

[quote] Since when does the NEW WOKE TIMES have conservative political columnists anyway

Since at least 1973 and William Safire

[QUOTE]Well, I’ve been put in the corner for being so ignorant. I must have missed those threads. Thank you for sharing, [R49].

I'm sorry if I came off as nasty. I didn't mean to, at all.

Whatever Brooks is, he isn't an imbecile.

I read this a while ago on the rec of a friend, and I think it's a superb piece of curiosity and character study.

That’s a mere decimal on the price of a ticket.

The road to character involves marrying a woman you make convert to your religion (and even change her first name) have 4 children, bring those children up in titration religions and then after she’s peaked in looks and childbear8 g, you divorce her, marry your young “research assistant” and convert to your new young wife’s religion, which was your old wife’s original religion.

That’s quite a road. And quite a character.

^^^

Since when does a writer necessarily embody the qualities he admires?

When he’s not a skeeving piece of shit.

R67, when you offer life advice, people will wonder if you don’t follow it yourself.

I didn't read it as offering advice.

I read it as a quest to understand something. Something which the author may bot possess.

may NOT possess

How goddamn stupid are black kids brought up these days that they *honestly* thought they'd be alright after such a display?

Tell us more, whoever...

Not sure he's escaping without his ass cleaned out. Everyone's asking:

When and how will Donald go?!

[quote]As I mentioned, I haven't read the NYTIMES in more than 20 years, probably closer to 25. I honestly don't remember being an avid follower of their editorial page, so I do apologize for my lack of knowledge in this area.

[quote]Since when does the NEW WOKE TIMES have conservative political columnists anyway?

It would appear that R17's quarter century separation from the NYT has instead put him in touch with all the very best sources for news. Not to mention all the research he has done to stay informed of the real facts.

Sure enough David made his Friday appearance on the PBS Newshour last night. The matter of his tweet came up.

The mea culpa starts at the 42:40 mark.

I think he missed (or deliberately avoided) the point of the criticism: it's not that he should’ve expected airport food to be more expensive, but that he complained about the cost of the food while ignoring the alcohol portion of his tab.

One wonders if the 80% of the tab that covered the alcohol had some effect on his thinking prior to writing the tweet.

Should we expect the full treatment in tomorrow's column. I assumed he hadn't commented yet saving up the explanations for then.

At least he’s not writing about how rude, insensitive and lonely Americans are. He’s been making that observation for the last twenty years.

In the PBS clip R75 posted, he says he was aware the booze was in the photo he posted and he was making a dumb (typically out of touch) joke that backfired...

R80, ah, the old “ I was only kidding” defense. I’m not sure that has ever worked.

He's a distortionist like most Republicans.

For a person who has made his living as a writer, his ineffective attempt to write that as a “joke” was very poorly crafted. There was a way to do that without making it seem like a political statement where he was complaining about inflation and laying the blame — indirectly — on Biden. Something like: “Can you believe this burger cost $80 at the Newark airport? Inflation? Oh, wait. . . .”

It doesn’t help that no one is going to cut him any slack because he’s always seemed like an insufferable snob.

He's a distortionist like most R̶e̶p̶u̶b̶l̶i̶c̶a̶n̶s̶.̶ ̶ 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝙔𝙤𝙧𝙠 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨.

R83 but he wasn’t trying to make a joke R83. That’s his post-social media humiliation lame excuse. He’s incredibly humorless and takes himself very seriously.

[quote]At least he’s not writing about how rude, insensitive and lonely Americans are. He’s been making that observation for the last twenty years.

No doubt based on a lifetime of intimate personal experience.

Exactly r85. What he was trying to say, what he is ALWAYS trying to say is that shitty as Trump is, in the end, everybody should vote Republican whenever possibe because otherwise AOC will eat your babies and Joe Biden will make airport hamburgers cost a million dollars. He is really a useless fuck when it comes to explaining what is actually going on in this country, despite the fact that that is really his job.

For a brief moment I wondered if it was an attempt at levity, but he's always been so humorless and pompous that one has to think he's dead serious.

It doesn't wash that he posted it as a joke.

No one believes it and it lacks, shall we say, character.

At least he admitted that it was stupid and that he shouldn't have done it.

The most moderate of men, Brooks is now calling for a national civic uprising.

Good for him. It's really shocking to me that he's promoting strikes, as well as mass rallies. In the meantime that shitbag UAW president Sean Fain supports tarrifs in the auto industry.

[QUOTE]Wow. David Brooks is recommending Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan's *Why Civil Resistance Works.* I never thought I'd see the day.

Coming back again, If a guy like David doesn’t have an American Express Platinum Card, he should get one and get his ass into an Centurion Lounge. He can get a full meal and all the bourbon he wants for just an annual fee of $695. Even lowly me has one. I got that salad plus some smoked brisket and two glasses of Pinot Grigio for no additional cost.

Come on David!