The author of the piece thinks PB joined the Navy in order to get a line on his CV? And that he had control over where and when to deploy? Good grief.
I’m surprised that that’s all you got out of the article. His larger point was that he and Kennedy were far more conservative, entitled and self serving than their peers.
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The service and his decision to get a job right out of college seem to be the major evidence of PB’s perfidy. That’s just silly.
His larger point is that you can find young politicians across the political spectrum. Not really a shocker. And it really doesn’t seem to me that he makes a strong case for these two being any more entitled or self serving than any other politician of their generation (or any other), other than that he disagrees with their politics.
No - that wasn’t it at all…
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That’s really the only content in the piece. The author is weirdly offended by existence of PB, and so he reaches for objections, but they’re pretty vacuous.
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a heckler dressed as a corncob
There’s hope, yet. More of this, please.
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For real. “Would you raise taxes, yes or no?” It’s a bad-faith question, as DukeTrout said, designed to get unfair soundbites. I wish I could think of a snappy response that makes that clear, although I think Warren did about as well as she could with it. Bernie’s response on that specific point was great, too—maybe better than Warren’s for the purposes of a debate.
I agree. I know Pete’s not Warren. And he’s not Bernie. But that piece relies on innuendo to unfairly malign him, IMO. He’s smart and ambitious—boooo! High school valedictorian, the little smartypants—bet it gave him a big head to go with his big brain! And Harvard, how elitist! Studied history, what a jerk! Then Rhodes Scholar, elitist again! He then worked at McKinsey. Boooo! (Okay, I understand that one.) Followed by, among other things, military service—were his motives pure?? Let’s assume the worst, so no credit at all for that one!
Gah! And Pete’s been, from my perspective at least, a decent mayor. But according to Ryan Cooper at The Week, there’s just something “off” about him. What a slimy criticism. I hope our politicians were the “smart kids.” And drive, ambition, purpose, goal-setting, goal-attaining…yeah! Those aren’t evil traits, and to the extent that those traits are exaggerated, that describes basically every successful politician. Barack Obama was smart and ambitious. AOC is smart and ambitious. Elizabeth Warren is smart and ambitious. And Bernie, kindly codger who wandered up from the train station, is also smart and ambitious.
Cooper’s article actually links to a much better, and more good-faith (IMO) criticism of Pete in Current Affairs. I don’t agree with everything that author, Nathan Robinson, says, but at least he approaches the topic more forthrightly:
Before I dive into Shortest Way Home ’s account of the life and career of Peter Buttigieg, let me be up front about my bias. I don’t trust former McKinsey consultants. I don’t trust military intelligence officers. And I don’t trust the type of people likely to appear on “40 under 40” lists, the valedictorian-to-Harvard-to-Rhodes-Scholarship types who populate the American elite. I don’t trust people who get flattering reams of newspaper profiles and are pitched as the Next Big Thing That You Must Pay Attention To, and I don’t trust wunderkinds who become successful too early. Why? Because I am somewhat cynical about the United States meritocracy. Few people amass these kind of résumés if they are the type to openly challenge authority. Noam Chomsky says that the factors predicting success in our “meritocracy” are a “combination of greed, cynicism, obsequiousness and subordination, lack of curiosity and independence of mind, [and] self-serving disregard for others.” So when journalists see “Harvard” and think “impressive,” I see it and think “uh-oh.”
Yes! I don’t even completely disagree! And honestly, that piece is super long and will take me a while to fully read and digest. But is it possible to criticize “the system” without writing off a young politician who successfully navigated the system? I hope so. When we’re looking for young Democrats to fill the ranks, is Harvard or military intelligence or Rhodes Scholarship a deal-breaker? I hope not! My fingers can punch this little screen no more.
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Did he go, “C’mon, man!”?
(I was watching the Nats game instead)
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Yes, that’s a better article. And the Cooper article distorts it. Cooper says:
He has turned out to be one of the strongest fundraisers in the field, almost entirely due to his popularity among the ultra-rich.
But the Robinson article he links to doesn’t say that. It says that PB is popular among some rich people – like Gwyneth Paltrow – but the it is mainly about bundlers, professional fundraisers who operate fundraising consortia (like Act Blue).
PB isn’t my personal top choice among the candidates – probably he’s 4th for me right now – but I’d be delighted to see him as the party’s candidate in a way that I would not be happy to see Biden or Klobuchar.
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It’s politically incorrect to say that, but what the hell, I’ll fall on that grenade. If anyone would join the Navy as a calculated political act, it would be this guy.
It wasn’t that he got a job, but where he got a job. Even if he didn’t choose when and where he was deployed when he was in the Navy, he certainly could have chosen to work someplace a little less evil. It’s not like he didn’t get any other job offers, and didn’t have any other opportunities in life. He was a Harvard grad, Rhodes scholar, with a classic Type A personality and plenty of connections.
Not really. Or if it is, then where is Pete Buttigieg on the polticial spectrum? Where is Joe Kennedy? Nobody fucking knows, that’s where.
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No - that’s what you’re saying. It’s fine to have your opinion about what someone says, though. So - knock yourself out.
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Biden has been burning through his campaign cash at an alarming rate
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The Kurds are not the only people in Syria who’ve been receiving assistance from the US military.
The “moderate rebels” supported by the USA in Syria were largely anything but moderate.
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That’s true for Cooper as well. It was basically an opinion piece where he expressed his dislike of two millennial (or millennial-adjacent) candidates, and his like for one other, without, however, giving much substantive reason for the dislike.
I don’t know; was it that easy to get jobs out of college at that time? In my day, getting a decent job fresh out of college, even an elite college, was a challenge. I hadn’t heard that it had gotten easier. I had friends that took low-paying jobs in department stores; do we likewise say that someone who takes a job at Walmart is evil?
While I don’t understand why PB seems to really irritate some people, I acknowledge that he does. It seems more honest to me to raise substantive objections to him than to complain about his first job out of college, or about the size of the town where he is mayor, or in which hellhole he served while in the military.
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No - he didn’t express any opinions about your comments.
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No, but he expressed opinions about these three politicians and what they said. His article was the definition of an “opinion piece”. And I’m pretty sure it is still OK in this forum to express opinions about articles like that.
Who said it wasn’t? I believe someone said “knock yourself out”.
You can even continue to say your opinions of his views are his views.
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The Rhodes Scholarship isn’t “college”, sorry.
Besides, I’d have far more respect for him if he took a job doing something, anything, less evil, even if that meant hauling used furniture in a piss soaked panel van for a year before finding a job at an ethical nonprofit that paid him maybe half of what he was worth.
Especially then, actually.
Gee, it depends. Did this person take a job where they worked 39 1/2 hours a week so their boss didn’t have to give them benefits, and where they had to go on welfare because they weren’t making a living wage, and where they were literally told to “not be shy” about finding something they liked in the trash, or were they hired as the consultants who advised WalMart how to do that, how to grind the rural poor under the bootheel of a massive corporation?
I’m not asking hypothetically. I was an interview for a consultant position like that, and I walked. The . Fuck. Out. Of the interview once I realized how fucking evil it was. And I was just a state college grad with no real job prospects, nowhere to live in two months, and nobody to take me in.
I’m not even running for president, or any office for that matter. I’m just Donatella Nobody of the Clan Nobody.
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I’m so sorry. I had to. 
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