by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
David Brooks is a political columnist for the New York Times and an occasional television news personality. Brooks is one of the people that the Republican Party props up whenever it is accused of not having an intellectual component, and he attempts to support Republican positions from reasoned and thoughtful perspectives rather than just belching vitriol or the party's mean-spirited talking points. But even though Brooks routinely represents the Republican point of view in journalism's Old Gray Lady, he is far from being a William F. Buckley.
(I'm not sure why, but when I hear David Brooks' name, I always see Lindsey Graham in my mind's eye. I guess that is my issue, and not theirs.)
Brooks generally comes across as something between lackluster and dignified, and he leaves the partisan barking to others, but this week, for reasons apparently known unto himself, David Brooks dropped that staid persona for a few brief moments and tried to engage in some political snark - and his attempt proved to be a rolling disaster that is still being laughed about and ridiculed days later.
The columnist was having a meal (of sorts) at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, when he decided to take a picture of his food and post it on Twitter as a potshot at the Biden economy. The photo was of a burger, fries, and what appeared to be a small glass of whiskey on the rocks. His text read:
"This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible."
The twitterverse immediately realized that something was amiss with the Brooks' tweet. Yes, airport food is over-the-top expensive, but not even the new Kansas City Airport could get away with charging $78 for a burger and fries and a drink. The tweets started to fly and quickly headed toward a consensus that the bill must have included libations for the columnist - and that perhaps he had drunk enough to where he actually did think that the $78 was the cost of the meal - sans alcohol. Soon someone from the eatery from which Brooks had tweeted became aware of his post and tweeted back that eighty percent of the $78 total and been the journalist's bar tab.
Whoops.
The moral of this story is never tweet while drinking, or, if you do, at least be grounded in real life.
(And yes, I do realize that "Twitter" now has another name, but this is my blog and here I will call it whatever I damned well please! And if Leon Elon Musk doesn't like it, he can park a new, high-end model Tesla in my drive and we can discuss it!)
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