The Mahablog: What's the Matter With Yurp?

I read the opening line of David Brooks's column today with a heavy heart...

Forgive me for making a blunt and obvious point, but events in Western Europe are slowly discrediting large swaths of American liberalism.

... because I realized it would be my duty to blog about this column today, which required me to read the rest of it.

Of course, in Bobo's World, whenever a tree falls in the forest it discredits large swaths of American liberalism, whether anyone hears it or not. So I am less concerned about what an animated cabbage thinks of American liberalism than I am about what the rejection of the EU constitution actually signifies.

I think it signifies that the people of Yurp are not an alien species but folks like us Amurrkuns, folks who put on leurs pantalon one leg at a time and who are just as capable of making stupid decisions in the voting booth as we are.

This does not comfort me much.