An update on the week’s most important story

You may recall David “Four Fingers” Brooks blaming Uncle Joe Brandon for the fact that purchasing straight liquor at airport restuarants tends to involve a substantial markup, a practice that surely began in January 2021. Truly, an instant Bobo classic, right up there with “I could not spend more than $20 at a Red Lobster.” It’s a particularly funny lie because a professional no-work-lecture-circuit elite pundit like Brooks presumably spends roughly a third of his waking hours at airports or on planes. (He and Larry Lessig can collaborate on essay about how outrageous it is when your employer expects you to go into your own kick to get an airline reserve card. Such indignities!)

I mean, even 85-year-old novelists got in on the action:

(bar bill: $66. food bill: $12. tip: $0 N Y Times expense account) https://t.co/ZcmHOKuPIi— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) September 21, 2023

But it gets even better, as he gets roasted by the airport restaurant in question:

What kills me is that Brooks couldn’t even find a good example of a captive audience airport rip-off — $18 for burger and fries is within the broad range you’d expect to pay for a big city sit down restaurant. (Cheaper than PJ Clarke’s!) And they’re generally not cutting you any breaks on whiskey that doesn’t come out of the well, either.

Anyway, “airport bars won’t sell me three double scotches on the rocks at cost” is going to be the most novel excuse for Reluctantly Supporting Donald Trump we have seen yet. A true innovator in the field.