New York Times columnist David Brooks may be scheduled to teach a class called "Humility" at Yale, but that doesn't make him humble, according to Matt Taibbi.
"Assuming this is all real, though, this has to make pretty much any list of the most pretentious moments ever," Taibbi wrote on his Rolling Stone blog on Wednesday.
Taibbi added that Brooks is a "class-obsessed" "aristocrat-apologist," and that "this move might formalize his status as the biggest windbag in the Western hemisphere." He also wrote on Twitter:
Taibbi has been going after Brooks for a while. He wrote a scathing translation of Brooks in 2010 and bashed Brooks later that year for claiming that "the rich are more industrious."
"Only a person who has never actually held a real job could say something like this," Taibbi wrote. "Most of the work in this world completely sucks balls and the only reward most people get for their work is just barely enough money to survive, if that."
Brooks has been having a hard time lately. Alex Pareene, a political writer for Salon, wrote on Wednesday that "David Brooks is a sad shell of his former self, listlessly summarizing random bits of social science and pretending the Republican Party is secretly moderate and reasonable."
Brooks did not respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post.