Meme Alert: A New York Times Op-Ed Writer's Maiden Voyage [View All]

When a (male) writer uses phrases like this (at a time like this, when Ashcroft makes fun of librarians, and Rumsfeld and FoxNews PR hack Briganti equate debate with treason, and M'Ann Coulter raves about "girly men") what dichotomy is he focusing on?

"...really, darling..."

"...toughen them into paragons of manly virtue..."

"...a sense of chivalry..."

"...a knightly quest..."

"...stand above the carnage with a clear head and an unflinching will to win..."

"...virility, courage, self-discipline and toughness..."

Probably the most twisted essay I've read in a long time.

Check out the final paragraph first - it's a doozie! Try to backtrack in your mind and extrapolate what kind of essay could possibly build up to such a bizarre conclusion:

The Protestant Establishment is dead, and nobody wants it back. But that culture, which George Bush and Howard Dean were born into, did have a formula for producing leaders. Our culture, which is freer and fairer, does not.

And it's his début piece for The New York Times, I hear they're grooming him to be some kind of "Safire Lite":

http://www.randomdudes.com/bush/bush.html

Woops here's the correct link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/13/opinion/13BROO.html?n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/David%20Brooks

Is this guy actually trying to argue that legacy admissions favoring one ethnic group and colleges emphasizing "virility" and "toughness" produce better leaders than a modern meritocracy? Sounds to me like another frustrated fag à la Andy Sullivan wistfully wondering if the boys in Skull & Bones really do give it to each other up the fundament on initiation night.

Memo to Mr. Brooks: Go out and get laid once in a while (with the gender of your choice) or you're liable to turn into another Ann Coulter hysterically seeing "girly men" at every turn. Work out the kinks in your rich fantasy life on your own time so you won't be tempted to waste precious column-inches of The New York Times op-ed page proclaiming your synaesthesias and ethnophilias to the world.