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Thursday, February 17, 2011

'Intellectual Dream Team' of David Brooks and Arianna Huffington Crushed in Debate

Why on earth anyone would consider this pairing as intellectual titans escapes me, especially when you consider their opposition. In Brooks you have an alleged conservative who forfeited credibility for life when he was awestruck by the crease in Obama's trousers. Teamed with Zsa Zsa, there's a good chance the two would be manhandled by a couple of sixth-graders.

But when they face off against P.J. O'Rourke, one of the great satirists of his time, and author Zev Chafets, you've got a complete mismatch.
Even Arianna Huffington can't win 'em all. Paired with conservative pundit David Brooks in what should have been a dream team, she was soundly defeated in Tuesday night's Intelligence² debate at NYU's Skirball Center. The contest pitted Huffington and Brooks against satirist P.J. O'Rourke and journalist Zev Chafets. The topic: the merits of the two-party system.

Electronic audience voting showed the latter team proved more persuasive. Or, as Huffington lamented, the crowd was too taken with O'Rourke's roguish libertarian humor to pay attention to her and Brooks' case that the two-party system was making America "ungovernable."
The stupid people were too charmed by the funny man and didn't pay attention to poor Arianna.

Aww. Hard to understand who nobody would pay attention to her when she comes up with gems like this.
"Basically, the two-party system is like a stale marriage. Democrats and Republicans need something to spice it up. They need to go on Craigslist and find a third party."
Must really hurt to take a beating consider the location. Who'd have thought the Huffington-Brooks "dream team" would go down to defeat in front of a college audience in New York?

Update: Here's video of the event, via Hot Air.

THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM IS MAKING AMERICA UNGOVERNABLE (iq2us.org) from Intelligence Squared US on Vimeo.

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7 comments:

  1. uncledan12:53 PM

    Great article, JWF! I am interested in Arianna's sudden dislike of the two party system. Which party does she think needs to be listened to more? What would be the leanings of this new party she wants? Of course we all know the answer. She wants another Right Wing party brought in to split the Republicans and gurantee a win for the Left. I don't care what anyone says about that woman. She's not bright. The bricks of stupidity that fall from her mouth can be heard hitting the ground a mile away.

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  2. DaveS5:27 PM

    Video of the debate is freely available here.

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  3. Dennis M. Campbell6:06 PM

    Excellent point!

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  4. FrankG8:41 PM

    it's intirely possible that the audience couldn't understand a word Zsa Zsa uttered. Alternate explanation: they could

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  5. Geordie3:06 PM

    Love P.J., but he's starting to do this "ya know" thing. I found it distracting until I made a "but um"-esque drinking game out of it.

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  6. M. White11:32 AM

    Brooks and Huffington AKA Ricky and Lucy together muster the intellectual gravitas of a pastrami sandwich. To simply call this pair of elitist limo-libs stupid would be an insult to stupid people.

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  7. Oliver Klozoff2:59 PM

    Huffington speaks of "fundamental change" as though that's something anyone wants.  If my right leg went from healthy to gangrenous, that would represent a "change" - a rather "fundamental" one, at that.

    People voted for nonsense like "hope" and "change" in 2008, and look where that's gotten us.

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