David Brooks, a left-wing New York Times columnist, claimed an airport meal cost $78 when it didn’t.
This might sound like a petty thing to make an issue of, but it goes to a larger point I like to make about the corporate media, which is this…
If these people lie about little things, imagine the lies they tell us about stuff that actually matters.
Using his verified X account Wednesday, Brooks posted a photograph of a hamburger, fries, and what was left of what looks like an alcoholic drink. He added this caption: “This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible.”
Except.
According to the restaurant, “this meal” did not cost Brooks $78. The food cost $17.99 (which is still a helluva lot of money). Add what, another $12 for the drink? And this is the best part…
Brooks’ tweet received so much attention (most of it ridicule) that the airport restaurant in question, the 1911 Smokehouse Barbecue, responded on Facebook. Above a photo of Brooks, the restaurant piled on the scorn with what can only be described as an awesome fact check:
Looks like someone was knocking back some serious drinks – Bar tab was almost 80% and he’s complaining about the cost of his meal keep drinking buddy – we get paid off everything.
So the restaurant has confirmed the tab was, in fact, $78, but the meal was only $18. The rest was the bar tab. That’s a $60 bar tab. How many drinks did this liar slug back between flights?
And how much money does the New York Times pay this lying liar to lie that he drops $78 on an airport lunch? Good grief, do you know how many hungry families $78 could feed? Do you know how many Blu-rays $78 buys?
Brooks hasn’t tweeted anything since. He’s probably stinking of urine and passed out in the airport garage with a perfect crease in his pants.
Are these honestly the best elites this country can come up with? Nowhere outside corporate media salons is David Brooks anything but a walking joke, a cartoon of those woefully out of touch but still desperate to boss everyone around because they know what’s best for us.
And now he’s been caught lying about something that doesn’t matter, which tells you he will lie about anything, but you can expect zero repercussions. If anything, he’ll use this experience for column fodder—another one of those excruciating pieces about how he learned something from his brief time in the real world, which is just another excuse for David Brooks to write about his favorite subject: David Brooks.
John Nolte’s debut novel Borrowed Time (Bombardier Books – September 26) is available for pre-order. You can read an exclusive excerpt here.