Tom Friedman is a Jackass

"New Orleans and Baghdad" (September 9, 2005)

2005-09-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

Memo to: Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times columnist

From: Moderate Iraqi Sunnis

Dear Mr. Friedman:

I recently received your letter, entitled "New Orleans and Baghdad", and I would like to humbly convey to you the following reply -- fuck off. No seriously, fuck off.

You accuse us moderate Sunnis of being unwilling to accept that we "are a minority that can no longer rule all of a fascist Iraq, but can get its fair share of power and oil in a free Iraq".

Nevermind that the current constitution is a possible recipe for a new fascist theorcratic Iraq.

Nevermind that in the proposed federal structure, our "fair share" of oil could be as small as a measly 5%.

You accuse some of us Sunnis of "posturing for elections" or "acting in bad faith".

Nevermind that two of the members of our delegation were killed by insurgents and that we are scared for our lives.

Nevermind that the United States invited us into negotiations over the constitution only to almost exclusively back the proposals of radical shiite parties (many of which have strong ties to Iran).

Nevermind that it was the Kurds and Shiites who broke off negotiations and that the United States backed the incomplete and problematic constitution not because it promised to be a workable document but because of pressure to meet arbitrary political deadlines.

You say that the U.S. military is equivalent to a levee holding back the flood of violence in Iraq.

Nevermind that this last summer was the most violent summer on record in Iraq.

Nevermind that hundreds brave Sunni police-officers continue to loose their lives to daily insurgent attacks.

Nevermind that the U.S. military's strategy of violently occupying towns then abandoning them to insurgents might be fueling resentment in the Sunni triangle rather than bolstering our faith in the process.

It seems that now that the war in Iraq, a policy you supported, has turned out to be a political disaster, you need to find a political scapegoat.

And for some strange reason, you have picked moderate Sunnis rather than autonomous-hungry Kurds, radical-Islamic shiites, bloodthirsty insurgents, or bungling American proconsuls.

So I repeat, as your humble and faithful servant -- fuck off. May peace be with you.

For more on this column, see Huffington Post (Hooman Majd), Broken Windows, Bob's Rants, The Fulcrum, and Alternet.

Watching the Friedman...the Oops I Started a War Edition

2005-09-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

Harold Meyerson has an interesting article in The American Prospect in which he identifies the five pundits most responsible for selling the Iraq war to the American people. Included on the list -- Bill Kristol, Charlie Krauthammer, Vic Hanson, Chris Hitchens and....drumroll......Thomas Friedman!

According to Meyerson, Friedman was "was a vital -- perhaps the vital -- enabler of the war, because from his Times perch, he convinced many a reader (elite and layperson alike) who never would have been persuaded by the likes of Kristol that the war needed to be fought."

Altough he recongized the dangers of the Bush administration's strategy, "Friedman persisted in arguing for war, his war, though it was increasingly clear that when war came, it would hardly resemble the war he desired"

Meyerson concludes: "Friedman’s foolishness seems rooted in an almost willed ignorance of the ﬁgures in the Bush administration and the worldviews that deﬁned them...Was it too much to ask the nation’s most important foreign-policy journalist to focus on Bush’s war -- particularly because, well, it was Bush, and not Friedman, who was president?"

Putting Friedman in the same category as the tanned slimeball and the drunk windbag is a bit much. But given Friedman's pro-war writings and then his unacknowledged volte face when things got tough, maybe he is the worst of the bunch.

At least until one adds the Douchebag Diva to the list.

The bad news? The World Is Flat remains number two on the Times bestseller list.

"Osama and Katrina" (September 7th, 2005)

2005-09-07T07:03:00.000-07:00

"If only we had a gasoline tax..."

In a column in today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman returns from his lengthy vacation and argues that President Bush royally screwed up the handling of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy.

What a shocker! I hope Tom Friedman takes another three week vacation so that he can return to tell us that you can't get AIDS from tears, that John Roberts seems like such a nice boy, and that Adam wasn't touched by his noodly appendage.

And while I agree with Friedman that the Bush administration deserves serious criticism for its handling of Katrina (and Friedman's choice words for Grover Norquist are particularly appropriate), I don't agree with Friedman's kitchen sink approach.

It seems like Friedman is just listing off every Bush policy that he dislikes, as if they all have some tenuous connection to the Hurricane tragedy.

Friedman heaps blame on Bush's polices on taxes, energy policy, stem cells, education policy, health care, fuel-efficient cars, Saddam, and even Osama. Damn you, Osama, you Islamo-fascist weather controlling, levee breaking bastard!

Its amazing that in a column bashing Bush for his handling of Katrina disaster that Friedman can't even point out the obvious failings in Bush's policy -- such as the decision to integrate FEMA into the DHS or to appoint an inexperienced horse whisperer as head of FEMA.

Instead, we get the usual Friedman bugaboos. We need energy conservation! A Gasoline Tax! National health insurance!

Nevermind that a gasoline tax would have been an unprogressive measure that would have disproportionately punished the same poor people who bore the brunt of the Katrina aftermath.

Or that national health insurance would require the creation of a large, sprawling, and sluggish bureaucracy. You know, kind of like the Department of Homeland Security.

In the wake of the Katrina disaster, it would have been nice for someone to set aside the shrill tone of the blame game and actually demonstrate with facts and evidence how specific Administration policies contributed to the disaster.

Because someone -- Chertoff, Brown, Bush -- someone has to be held accountable for this tragedy in which a lack of political imagination, planning, and empathy led an unspeakble number of Americans to needlessly lose their lives.

But our Tom Friedman, fresh off his vacation, gives us the usual dose of tilting at windmills and strings of non sequiturs.

Welcome back, Tom. What a jackass.

For more on this column, see Limbo, Liberal Are Cool, Scaramouche, Newton's Complex Systems and Kvetch This!.

"Learning From Lance" (July 27, 2005)

2005-08-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

"Suck on my metaphor, you lazy Americans!"

Friedman is still on vacation, so its time to jump back in the time-machine and relive Thomas Friedman's July 27th column "Learning From Lance"...

Lance Armstrong is an amazing human being. He beats cancer then goes on, year after year, to pedal a bike long distances over steep mountains faster than any other human being alive.

But like Rosa Parks (who as Sarah Vowell humorously pointed out, people like Ted Nugent and Katherine Harris can't stop comparing themselves to), Lance Armstrong the Man is much less interesting than Lance the Metaphor™.

In the wake of his latest tour victory, for example, Lance has been compared to a North Carolinian "speed-drummer", a rabbit breeder at the Illinois state fair, a professor of music at the University of Montana, Google, and now, courtesy of Thomas Friedman, America itself.

According to Friedman, America has lost its ability to "meld strength and strategy." Our leaders lack vision and imagination. Americans "just want to admire Lance Armstrong, but not be Lance Armstrong."

China, on the other hand, is like Lance. Its politicians are not "a bunch of lawyers looking for a sound bite" but problem solving engineers (and communist authoritarians, but er, nevermind).

The Irish are also like Lance. "They have a plan. They are focused". Watch out world, the Irish are going to totally dominate the climbs in the Pyrenees.

Look, first off, Lance Armstrong is an American, so how in the world can he be the metaphoric representative of America's fading work ethic?

Moreover, the specific policy failures Tom is so riled up about -- energy dependence, outsourcing, the war in Iraq -- are not the consequence of America's "fading virtues" but of political preference.

Members of Congress did not pass energy independent policies not because of some vague Jan Ulrich-esque lack of vision, but because their major donors and constituents are automakers and the energy industry who oppose such policies.

Given his recent statements, I'm sure that President Bush is perfectly convinced that his decisions in Iraq, like those of the Postal Service Team, show a perfect combination of strength and strategery.

And exactly what recommendations would Lance the Metaphor™ have for America? America needs to beat cancer, bag Sheryl Crow, and recruit an experienced team of sprinters?

Personally, I can't wait for future Tom Friedman celebrity metaphor inspired columns. Just imagine: "France is the Frank Stallone of Europe, Ireland is the Sylvester."

"The neoconservatives brainwashed President Bush more effectively than Tom Cruise did Katie Holmes."

"Unless we follow the example of India, economic growth in the United States economy will be as unstable as Russell Crowe after two gin and tonics."

What a jackass.

For more on this column, see The Stopped Clock, Below the Beltway, It Shines for All, Kodachrome Quixote, Delusions of Grandeur, and AnalPhilosopher (he he, its not what you think).

"Calling All Luddites" (August 3rd, 2005)

2005-08-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

"No bars! Where is Tom Friedman when I need him?"

Unlike President Bush, I'm not fighting a global war on terror (or is it a global struggle against violent extremism? I get confused sometimes). So I actually got to enjoy my recent vacation. Mine lacked all those pesky war widows and protesters and other guilt inducing distractions.

Unfortunately, it appears that Tom Friedman is also on vacation! So despite the fact that it is Wednesday, I have no new column to rip...er, I mean...subject to constructive criticism.

Luckily, some enterprising individual has used the power of the internets to magically reproduce (read: copy and paste) our resident jackass's columns into blogger postings.

So let's enter the time-machine and relive Tom's August 3rd column entitled "Calling All Luddites" where our man revealed his dramatic and groundbreaking new political platform -- New Yorkers should have cell phone coverage on the subway!

Why is Tom pimping the Sprint Guy? Cell phones, he claims, enhance "wealth and productivity". Thus, in order to trasnform New York from an economic backwater, it is vital that we allow people to gab away in noisy, underground echo-chambers.

On my own subway commute, by the way, I've never noticed any globetrotting uber-nerd CEOs burning to use their Treos. Instead, I see lots of grunts and office drones ingesting copious amounts of coffee and Page Six on their way to their dead end jobs where some Lumbergh clone will rip them about their TPS reports.

Also, who actually uses their phone or P.D.A. to generate wealth? Using our time-machine, here is a sampling of text messages I sent on or around August 3rd with my cell phone:

Just Manny being Manny.
Laguna Beach is soooo fake.
Alien Loves Predator rules.

Sure, I was on vacation and none of my friends are internet multibillionaires, but I'm betting that even Steve Jobs and Paul Otellini spend more time emailing each other links to high-res versions of that Jessica Simpson video than they do chatting about the new Intel PowerBook specs.

But most importantly, out of all the issues facing mass transit -- rising costs, poor service, and that small issue called terrorism -- Tom Friedman chooses to focus on cell phone coverage?!?

New York City is currently having problems accounting for some some $600 million it was slated to spend on mass-transit security and Tom is wasting space on wifi access?

What a jackass.

For more on the column see Artois, Corante, Preoccupations, BuzzMachine, and (in a post full of humble pie) Advocates for Rasiej.

"The Revolt of Israel's Center" (July 13th, 2005)

2005-07-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

Tom: "The chutzpah of this mensch, Arik, with the withdrawal and the settlements!"
Other guy: "You really are a toochis!"

Starting tomorrow, my family and I are going on vacation for a couple weeks to a place far far away from the New York Times op-ed page.

This trip will help with my blood pressure, because the page has been especially craptastic recently - John Tierney is busy ripping off Slate columns, but with the addition of bad geek jokes (to punish hackers, we should force them to watch the Star Wars prequels on a Microtel machine running Red Hat 1.2, he he huh huh.).

Meanwhile, Nicky Kristof seems to think that riding the subway in North Korea counts as reporting (New Yorkers also seem quiet and reserved on the subways; perhaps they are entranced by their own dear leader).

Doing his part, in today's Times, Thomas Friedman predicts that with the withdrawal from Gaza, the center has finally gained ascendancy in Israel.

Ahh, the Israel Center, the Godot of the Middle East, when will you show up? Following the Oslo Accords? Maybe next time. After the assassination of popular Prime MInister Yitzhak Rabin? Try again. After the completion of the security wall? After withdrawal from Gaza? Hello, is this thing on?

You know centrism is in bad shape if you have to rely on Ariel Sharon. This guy is about as centrist as David Duke; maybe less so, seeing as David Duke never provided assistance to groups of Klan militias as they massacred African Americans in refugee camps.

Friedman thinks that with the disengagement from Gaza, the Israel center if finally triumphant. Hooey. Withdrawing from Gaza, a poor and peripheral strip of territory, is just a warm up for the real challenge of settling the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Even the withdrawal from Gaza has put Sharon in a very tenuous position. From within his own party, a group of Likud "rebels" fights his plans. Netanyahu waits in the wings. So much for Tom's robust center.

Not to mention, the emergence of a moderate coalition of centrist parties in Israel is predicated not just on withdrawal but on the reaction from the Palestinian side. Watch Sharon's center evaporate if Palestinian splinter groups continue to effectively launch suicide bombings, like the one yesterday in Netanya.

But the biggest barrier to the emergence of an Israeli center is not political will but the political system. Most people are aware that in elections for Irsrael's parliament, the Knesset, a candidate must only win 1.2% of the vote. The result is an odd assortment of extremist parties.

Imagine if the U.S. Senate were elected in the same way and a Senator could be elected simply by earning approximately 2 million votes. Say goodbye to Senator Max Baucus of Montana, whose state lacks the 2 million people to reach the threshold. But if record album sales were votes, say hello to Senator 50 Cent, who would earn two seats for his centrist "Die Tryin' Party".

Imagine a world with Senator Rush Limbaugh and Senator Michael Moore. With Senator Powerline and Senator Arianna Huffington. Welcome to Israeli politics.

The Gaza withdrawal and the moderation of Sharon is an interesting development, but don't expect it to be as durable or transformative as Friedman describes. But in an effort to infuse his staid columns with a sense of drama, Tom loves to oversell political developments. Every positive step is a revolution, every setback a catastrophe.

What a jackass.

For more on this column, see Preoccupied Territory, Doubting Thomas, DHP, New Jew, Israelpundit, and Broken Windows.

"If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution" (July 8th, 2005)

2005-07-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

"Shame on you, you naughty terrorists!"

In today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman argues that blame for the tragic terror attacks in London lies with moderate Muslim leaders who refuse to condemn terror.

The "greatest restraint" on human behavior, says Tom the psychologist, is shame. If Muslim leaders shame terrorists, they will stop. Speaking of shame, shame on you Tom for writing such crap in the wake of such a tragic event.

Terrorists don't feel shame or guilt over their actions. And they don't care about the moderate proclamations of reformist Muslim elites. Terrorists kill people who disagree with their ideology. So forget shame and guilt. The base of effective counter-terrorism is precisely the policeman and border guards (not to mention intelligence agencies and militaries) Tom seems to think are so ineffective.

Tom claims that "no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa" condemning Bin Laden.

Complete and utter bullshit. Spain's Islamic Commission issued a fatwa condemning Bin-Laden shortly after 3/11. And in 2004, Saudi Arabia's top cleric, Sheik Abdul Aziz al-Sheik, condemned terrorism in a sermon at the Namira Mosque in front of 2 million pilgrims. Maybe Tom was on vacation in Bangalore.

As the killing of the top Egyptian diplomat in Iraq demonstrates, if moderate Muslims condemn their ideology, then terrorists simply kill them.

Radical Islamic terrorists reject moderates. They reject reform. In other words, Tom, they reject the existing village and seek to rebuild it in their own image.

Shame might not work with terrorists, but it might work with Friedman. So shame on you Tom for spouting inaccuracies and absurd theories. Shame, shame, shame.

For more on this column, see Beirut Spring, Juan Cole, Counterpunch, Views from the Occident, and Dignified Rant.

UPDATE: For more links to statements by major Muslim leaders condemning terrorism, see Muhajabah.

"Follow the Leapin' Leprechaun" (July 1st, 2005)

2005-07-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

"Its Leprechaun 2: Revenge of the Jackass!"

In yesterday's New York Times, Thomas Friedman describes the wonder that is Ireland's economy.

Wait a second, didn't I read the same column a few days ago? Let's see, Irish stereotypes - check. French bashing - check. Vague descriptions about the Anglo-Saxon model - check.

Tom Friedman is like the Coldplay of op-ed columnists: release the same inoffensive, vaguely pleasing crap over and over again, and people just seem to love it!

Friedman urges France and Germany to relax the social democratic model and embrace a new economic model that balances social responsibility with pro-growth policies. A third way, you might say. Where have I heard this before?

France and Germany's economies have only grown by 1-2% the past couple years, but they're hardly on their way towards "real shocks". Labour costs in France ($21.53 per hour) are akin to those in Ireland ($18.80). Foreign direct investment in France remains high.

And France and Germany don't need Friedman's condescension to know that reform is necessary. Chirac has admitted that "the state cannot decide everything." In the past few years, France has lowered its corporate tax rates (which are lower than the U.S.) and made modifications to the 35 hour work week legislation.

And touting Ireland as a model of economic success is like touting Paris Hilton as a model of stardom. In their meteoric rises to economic powerhouse and B-grade celebrity, both Ireland and Ms. Hilton had a lot of inherent advantages that others did not.

For example, in its rise, Ireland had a small population, massive E.U. subsidies, and preexisting ties to a rich diaspora in the United States.

Similarly, Paris Hilton comes from a rich family and is a giant ho-bag.

Conversely, Ireland doesn't have many of the significant disadvantages facing France and Germany like the need to integrate a large, poor, formerly communist economy into its own or to manage an influx poor immigrants from Turkey and North Africa.

Analogously, Paris Hilton doesn't have a sense of shame or unsightly beard and back hair.

In conclusion, if France and Germany really want to grow, they need to do a reality show with Fox and make blurry sex videos.

The question of how France and Germany reform their huge economies, aging populations, volatile labor unions, and popular if inefficient social welfare programs is incredibly important. But Ireland is unlikely to hold all the answers.

But for Friedman, its a simple formula: if you agree with me about globalization, then your country, whether Ireland or India, is a model of success. If you disagree with me, then your country is a disaster, filled with lazy doomed idiots.

What a jackass.

For more on this column, see Crooked Timber, Irish Eagle, and Slugger O'Toole.

"End of the Rainbow" (June 29th, 2005)

2005-06-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

"Find me pot of jackassery!"

In yesterday's New York Times, Thomas Friedman describes the wonder that is Ireland's economy.

A column about Ireland is a great excuse for Tom to fire up the patented "Tom Friedman Cliché Generator": Is there a pot of gold at the end of the globalization rainbow? Are those Irish eyes a smiling at the flat world? Leprechauns dancing the outsourcing jig?

Newly crowned clown prince of the racial stereotype, Tom Friedman has become the veritable Lenny Bruce of the Times op-ed page, except without all the drugs and strippers.

But Friedman has a larger problem in this column: he makes things up. He opens his column with the amazing claim that Ireland is one of the richest countries in the EU and Ireland "today has a per capita G.D.P. higher than that of Germany, France, and Britain."

Bullshit. Just plain bullshit. According to the pesky "statistics" of the World Bank, in 2003, Irelands GNI per capita was $27,010. The U.K. was higher at $28,320.

In 2002, Ireland's GNI per capita was $22,930 compared with $22,180 for France. That's only a $750 a year difference between a country of 60 million people verses a country of 4 million people.

To be sure, France's 1.2% growth in 2002 might look small compared to Irelands 6.9% growth, until you realize that France's economy is over ten times bigger than Ireland's (GDP of $1.4 trillion verses $90 billion).

So maybe Tom is overselling Ireland's impressive success just a bit in order to make a point? What is Friedman's point? Surprise, surprise, its globalization. Friedman argues that to succeed like Ireland, you must "make high school and college education free," "make your corporate taxes low", and embrace globalization.

So if Friedman is correct, Ireland must have a highly educated population, right? Wrong. Again, those pesky World Bank "statistics" show that in Ireland 81.7% of eligible youth were enrolled in secondary school compared with 92.5% for France. So young people in France actually have greater access to secondary education that those in Ireland. Maybe French teachers are too busy teaching their students postmodern theories of laziness.

Okay, forget education, let's consider corporate taxes. To be sure, at 12.5%, Ireland has the lowest corporate taxes in Europe. But are low corporate taxes equal to success? Just check out the other economic powerhouses with low corporate taxes: Lithuania, Latvia, Cyprus, and Hungry.

What about high taxes? Clearly they must be linked with slow growth and unemployment? Well, top taxers in Europe include Germany (at 38.3%) and the Netherlands (35%), both strong economies. In North America, both Canada (36.1%) and the United States (40%) have high rates, but seem to be doing just fine.

There's a really interesting debate going on in Europe right now about how to embrace the global economy while retaining the social-democratic programs that most Europeans are accustomed to. Even Friedman admits that there are certain certain social democratic programs, such as free education and universal health care, that actually make places like Ireland more attractive for companies to invest in.

Ireland is a great story. Its growth is due to a whole host of factors, not least massive E.U. subsidies. But it's absurd to think that the economic success of a small country like Ireland holds all the answers, either for large countries like France and Germany or for poor countries such as Poland or Slovakia.

But don't look to Tom Friedman for nuanced reporting about complex global trends. Look to Tom for glib one liners and useless anecdotes.

What a jackass.

For more on this column, see Irish Eagle, Best of Both Worlds, Slugger O'Toole, and Just One Minute.

Watching the Friedman: the Toilet Humor Edition

2005-06-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Charles Haynes, I present the following piece of interpretive flickr art:

Thomas Friedman Goes to the Bathroom (a five act drama)

"Dear My Bowels, please make this quick, I've got to load
Michael Bolton on my iPod for that flight to India."

"Like Iraq, this crap is a lot more difficult then I thought. Must be
the brie I ate last night. Damn the French!"

"My bathroom smells as bad as the slums of Bangalore. Should
I light a match and outsource my stink?"

"Yasser Arafat once told me baba ganoush really loosens you up. I think
my bowels are telling me the world is constipated."

"Glad that's done! One thing's for certain, I truly am full of shit."

The bad news? The World Is Flat is #2 on the Times bestseller list.

"We Are All French Now?" (June 24th, 2005)

2005-06-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

"Eh, Tom Friedman, kiss my hard-working, cheese-eating ass!"

In today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman makes fun of the French and protectionists, which he seems to think are the same thing.

This column is enraging, in part because Tom is once again pushing a noble cause in the ratification of Cafta. But rather than make a simple, well argued case, Friedman has to fill his column with needless French bashing and misleading evidence.

Start with the French. Tom channels the arch-queen of triteness Maureen Dowd and strings together a bunch of nonsensical, snide French bashes. Friedman writes: "Ah, those French. How silly can they be? ... What a bunch of antiglobalist Gaullist Luddites! Yo, Jacques, what world do you think you're livin' in, pal? ... It's called Anglo-American capitalism, mon ami."

Why is the Times paying this jackass to write the twenty-first century equivalent of stupid Pollack jokes?

It might be defensible if "The French are lazy" argument were even remotely true. Unfortunately, according to those pesky "statistics" of the OECD, French productivity was $47.2 per hour worked compared with $43.5 hours worked for the United States. So much for that American work ethic. Must be Minesweeper or websurfing for the latest Linsey Lohan gossip.

Shame on you Tom, for pandering to your audience with a bunch of backhanded and unsubstantiated swipes at the French.

Then, Friedman does his standard "global playing field is being flattened" shtick. He even (gasp!) cites "evidence" from a McKinsey Global Institute report that he says reports that countries that oppose outsourcing are hurting their economies.

Unfortunately for Friedman, the report says exactly the opposite of what he claims. Indeed, one of its main conclusions is that: "Offshore employment will grow gradually, making no sudden impact on labor markets overall in developed countries."

According to the report, outsourcing has effected only 565,000 service jobs in the U.S. to date. The report estimates that only about 1.2% of all service jobs in the developed world will be outsourced by 2008. In other words, while outsourcing may be beneficial, it is a relatively small phenomenon that has yet to make a significant economic impact on the economies of the major industrialized countries.

Why is the Times paying this jackass to copy and paste large sections out of reports whose conclusions he misreads? Shame on you, Tom, for being lazy, sloppy and full of crap.

Among his lesser crimes, Friedman makes some wildly overblown assertions about Cafta itself. He claims that Cafta will be "critical" to competing with China. He also says that that Cafta will "help consolidate" fragile democracies.

In the long term, Cafta may well help fuel growth in the U.S. and Latin America. In the short term, it will produce both economic winners and losers as the economies of the U.S. and Latin America struggle to adapt to competition with one another.

Tom Friedman could have written a really interesting column about these tradeoffs and the best ways to manage them. Instead we get French jokes and his usual drivel about outsourcing.

What a jackass.

For more on this column, see MaxSpeak, Culture of Life Financial News, Q and O, and Blorge.

"Run, Dick, Run" (June 22nd, 2005)

2005-06-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

"Jesus Loves Dick..."

In today's New York Times, Tom Friedman tells us that Bush has problems with his Big Dick. Or his lack of an heir apparent to his retro-dynasty of budget deficits, moral majorities, and war.

Friedman believes that if Bush had a VP that was a viable Presidential candidate, that he'd have an incentive to widen his political base, appeal to the center, and abandon his radical policies like tax cuts and privatizing social security.

Pleaaaase. Candidate Bush ran on these radical policies and was elected President on them. Is he going to abandon his big agenda simply because he has a new butt boy?

There is a much more obvious explanation for Bush's agenda - his party controls the Supreme Court, the Congress and the Presidency. Why should he moderate his views when there are no checks to his power and when voters have bestowed him with a mandate, however narrow?

Friedman seems to think a new VP would check Bush. Forget that VPs have historically been about as useful as a chastity belt on Paris Hilton.

In the end, this column reads like a centrist Democrat fetish fantasy... Bush must be stopped. His policies are bad. Who can we turn to? Colin Powell? John McCain? Arlen Specter? A new, more moderate vice-president?

The most effective check on Bush would be a Democratic party with a unified and coherent message that could appeal to a wide spectrum of the country.

Only a mind as masturbatory as Tom Friedman would believe that policies such as tax hikes, hybrid cars, and a "New Deal for globalization" would have broad appeal.

What a jackass.

For more on this column, see Cranked, Bulworth, Blue Republic, and Free of Chains.

"As Toyota Goes..." (June 17th, 2005)

2005-06-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

"Its the hot new thing! The 2001 Toyota Prius!"

In yesterday's New York Times column, Tom Friedman tells us that oil dependence is lame but the Toyota Prius is cool.

Poor Tom, he always comes late to the party. A few columns ago he discovered the hipness of "The Daily Show". Now he's all excited about the Prius. Hey readers, have you heard of this great new band called "The Strokes"?

Friedman seems to believe that if all Americans drove these Prius thingamajigs, then the United States could reduce its dependence on crude oil and foreign autocrats and the Middle East would be awash in peace, love and happiness.

Why must Friedman take a perfect good idea (the Prius) and then oversell it with absurd claims (geo-greenism)?

Energy dependence didn't get the U.S. into the Middle East and energy independence won't get us out. The U.S. became embroiled in the Middle East for a variety of reasons including its ties to Israel, fighting communism, protecting the Suez canal, as well as securing access to oil.

Reducing the domestic consumption of crude oil doesn't solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. It isn't the magic bullet that would allow the U.S. to pull out of Iraq. And while it would give the ability of the U.S. to browbeat Saudi Arabia on human rights, that might prompt an Islamic revolution or worse. In terms of strategic oil reserves, the U.S. is actually more secure today than it was in the 1970s.

The most immediate benefits to driving a Prius have nothing to do with geopolitics, they have to do with crunchy granola staples like reduced emissions and clean air. So turn up the Phish, light a doobie, and whiz away on your electric motor, but don't pretend that you're sticking it to Al-Qaeda.

Except if you're Tom Friedman. Where every good idea becomes a panacea. And where the commonsense notion is the ingenious.

What a jackass.

For more on this column see Foglio, The Baltimore Group, and Moldy Blue Cheese Curds.

UPDATE: See Moldy Blue Cheese Curds for a critique of my comments.

"Let's Talk About Iraq" (June 15th 2005)

2005-06-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

"Let's talk about Iraq, baby! Let's talk about Shiite and Sunni!"

In today's New York Times, Tom Friedman informs us that things in Iraq aren't going so well. Really? Whatever gave you that idea, Tom? Friedman proposes the following controversial solution - let's increase the number of U.S. troops.

So I had a strange feeling reading this column, like I was actually in agreement with Tom Friedman. But like Star Wars: Episode III, the more you think about this column, the more you realize its basically a load of crap.

First, Friedman wants us to believe that only he is the only person who takes instability in Iraq seriously. Conservatives just cheerlead. Liberals burn with secret, unspoken resentment. So I guess when the Senate Foreign Relations committee meets this Thursday to talk about "Stabilization and Reconstruction: Building Peace in a Hostile Environment", they're going to confine their inquiry to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Second, Friedman believes that pretty much everything could have been prevented if the U.S. had deployed more troops. Is it really reasonable to believe that more boots on the ground could have prompted a reconciliation between religious groups with a long history of suspicion and conflict? Would Iraq's economy, racked by inefficiency, corruption, and a decayed infrastructure, really have been transformed overnight by a couple of extra reservists?

Third, Friedman slams Sunni politicians for lacking political vision, like the reliable Kurds (yes, those militia-supporting, abduction-sanctioning Kurds). But its unclear how Friedman's big plan for more U.S. troops is going to magically turn Sunni leaders like Meshaan al-Jiburi into Meshaan Gorbachev or Salih al-Mutlak into Nelson al-Mandela.

Throwing troops at the Iraqi problem might seem like a reasonable idea, but without a concrete, comprehensive plan that acknowledges what are legitimate Sunni fears of political disempowerment, the insurgency will continue to gain strength.

And as long as Iraq festers in political turmoil, Tom Friedman will be right there, er, right in the Times' plush offices offering us vague and impractical solutions.

What a jackass.

For more on this column, see Brad DeLong, Eschaton, Whiskey Bar, Liferaft of Love, Back in Iraq, Iddybud, and Light of Reason.

UPDATE: John Burns for op-ed columnist, anyone?

"Behind Every Grad..." (June 10th 2005)

2005-06-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

"Follow your dreams...at least until they're outsourced."

In today's New York Times, Tom Friedman takes a controversial stand on an important foreign policy issue. Er, actually, Tom tells us that while giving a commencement speech at Williams college, he learned that high school teachers are important.

First off, what class asks Tom Friedman to give their commencement address? Were Ali G, Bono, and Jon Stewart all unavailable?

Friedman, the master orator, reportedly told Williams grads "don't listen to your head, listen to your heart." That's sage advice, worthy of a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist or eighties pop wordsmiths Roxette.

Second, I know teachers are important and all, but were there no foreign events to write about today? Did Friedman think that political turmoil in Iraq, African debt relief, and anti-democratic crackdowns in Egypt were just too unimportant to merit his attention?

Tom is probably busy preparing such hard hitting future columns as "Darfur: The Children Are Our Future" and "Freedom in Iraq: You've Gotta Give for What You Take".

Finally, even in an obvious column about the importance of good teachers, Friedman manages to make an irrelevant suggestion. Does Tom really think that "the best way" we can help teachers who face huge systematic problems such as large class sizes, a lack of resources, and overtesting is to hand out cash prizes to good teachers?

I have a better idea for a prize - the Thomas L. Friedman Award for Banality in Punditry - awarded annually to a political columnist who most effectively reduces a complex and important problem to a series of trite observations.

The competition is tight. Robert Novak, Charles Krauthammer, and Arianna Huffington have all put in strong showings.

But with columns like this, I have a feeling the award's namesake may once again run away with the honors.

No Jackass Left Behind.

For more on this column: see School Information System, Just One Minute, Second Omnibus, and Thomas Friedman is a Great Man.

Watching the Friedman: Round up of Tom on the Web

2005-06-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

"Petroleum ministers love my book!"

More Positive Reviews of The World Is Flat from The New York Press ("Friedman's new book is the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow horseshit"), The Hindu ("in celebrating the flatness of his world he loses sight of more than one inconvenient hillock"), and The Weekly Standard ("its sloppy jalopy cadence and stunning banality, this sentence suggests a tenth-grader's effort").

Friedman in an interview for Bloomberg where he admits he is not very technologically savvy . Good thing he refrains from writing about technology.

Jack Shafer calls out Friedman for relentlessly promoting his book in his Times columns. Choice quote:

Since the book came out two months ago, his columns have stated that the world has become "flat," is "increasingly flat," has become "flatter," or some other variant ("flattened," "flattening," "flatten") at least six times...Get it? Flat. Flatter. Flattest. Leveled. Compressed. Deflated. Planed. Steamrollered. Pancaked. Creamed. Smushed. Not hilly. Flat.

The bad news? The World if Flat is number #3 on the Times hardcover bestseller list.

"Bangalore: Hot and Hotter" (June 8th, 2005)

2005-06-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

In today's New York Times, Tom Friedman is hired as spokesperson for Infosys, a dynamic, transformative, totally revolutionary IT company in India!

Firing up the ole cliche generator, Friedman tells us that India "is like a highway full of potholes, with no sidewalks and half the streetlamps broken." But because of dynamic, amazing, incredible new companies located in Bangalore like Infosys, "off in the distance, the road seems to smooth out, and if it does, this country will be a dynamo."

You may have heard of Infosys, because Friedman already sang their praises in a column last week. But this time, Friedman has come armed with evidence that India's IT industry can transform its economy. Right? I mean he can't just be making this up, can he?

Er, well, the "best indication" Friedman can come up with that Bangalore is "becoming hot" is the presence of foreign techies. First, is this really the "best indication" you could come up with? And second, how many foreign techies are there? If Bangalore is really heating up, it must be hundreds or thousands, right?

Nope. Rather, Friedman reports that his darlings Infosys have hired around a hundred foreigners. By this indicator, the hottest industry in the United States must be the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission.

Friedman buttresses his case by talking to two of foreign workers who assure him that "all the business is coming to India" and that Bangalaore is "where the center of gravity is." Please, I can find two people in the East Village who still think foam trucker hats and furry Eskimo boots are hot, but that doesn't make it so.

You might ask yourself, instead of playing butt-boy to Infosys, why doesn't Tom Friedman just cite some hard numbers on India's IT transformation?

Probably because the numbers are decidedly mixed. According to the pesky "statistics" of the Economist, in 2004, India's IT industry employed just 900,000 people total (in a country of over one billion). The no talent hacks at the World Bank estimate that high-tech exports account for just 4.8% of India's GDP.

And while Friedman has previously told us that the "famine" in India isn't for food it's for IT jobs, India remains a developing country with serious problems including hunger, poverty (over 35% of India's population lives on less than $1 a day) and illiteracy (the largest population of illiterate people in the world).

I know, Tom. As I've just amply demonstrated, numbers are totally boring and difficult to put in context. I mean, it’s much easier to say that a flight from Bangalore to Delhi is only $75! Only $75! India is amazing! Never mind that GDP per capita in India is only $2,900 a year.

There are good signs; India's economy grew by 8% last year. But India remains a largely poor, agrarian country. When the Friedman steamroller rolls in, however, all the difficulties, uncertainties, and challenges that India faces get flattened down.

There's a reason Friedman subtitled his column "Hot and Hotter", because its basically Bangalore porn. There lies Infosys, the centerfold, all pumped full of silicon and foreign investment, looking so fetching and desirable. In the hands of Tom Friedman, the Larry Flynt of Globalization, all blemishes get airbrushed and we are left with the perfect fantasy.

But like all pornography, isn't Friedman's vision of India just a bit exploitative? Doesn't it make you feel just a little dirty?

What a jackass.

For more on this column: see India Uncut, Transport Phenomena, and Dilatory Action.

Bonus Jackass: "Life Lessons from Watergate" (June 5th, 2005)

2005-06-06T17:36:00.000-07:00

Special Bonus Jackass edition! In yesterday's New York Times, David Brooks writes that "the purpose" of Watergate in today's culture is to convince more young college graduates that they need to kiss ass and play angles like Woodward and Bernstein.

Okay, wha? No really, whaaa? I found it really difficult to even understand the purpose of this column. It’s like a David Brooks commencement speech without his usual dose of xanax. "Failure seems but a step away. Loneliness hovers." How lame were David Brooks' post-college years?

I spent my post-college years chatting up women (unsuccessfully), getting drunk, and bitching about my job. I guess this must be my "ironic, self-deprecatory, postpubescent fatalism" talking, but in my post-college years, failure didn't hover, it descended, frequently and mercilessly, but boy was it a lot of fun.

And you have to love David Brook's elitist takedown of elitism. "Fear of the unknown sends thousands [of grads] back to law school." Oh, those poor souls, stuck in law school. It must be really hard to be rich and successful.

In David Brooks bobo world, pubescent fatalists listen to Death Cab for Cutie. Postpubescent fatalists read the New Yorker.

What the hell does this have to do with Watergate? Oh, yeah, "Watergate has become a modern Horatio Alger story, a real-life fairy tale, an inspiring ode for mediacentric college types." Give me a break. The Horatio Alger of today's "mediacentric" twentysomethings is much more likely to be Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson than Woodward and Berstein.

And here I though that Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate story not by kissing ass and being ironic but through hard work, perseverance, and an unwillingness to be intimidated.

And silly me, I thought that "the lesson" of Watergate was about the corruption of American politics, the abuse of executive power, and the importance of the fourth estate.

Its nice to know that when resident jackass Tom Friedman is off traveling the world looking for banalities to observe, David Brooks is sitting in New York in a tepid pool of his own self-loathing and writing columns that prove that he too is, for very different reasons, also a jackass.

For more on this column see Brad DeLong, Matt Yglesias, Whiskey Bar, Crooked Timber, Roving Flashlight, and The Reaction.

"A Race to the Top" (June 3rd, 2005)

2005-06-03T10:07:00.000-07:00

In today's New York Times, Tom Friedman asserts that French voters, by rejecting the EU Constitution, are endorsing their "aging, inflexible economies" over the more integrated future of "Eastern Europe, India and China in a flattening world."

Friedman is clearly breaking new ground here. Er, actually, he's just reiterating his own newspaper's recent news analysis, only he's doing it without all those pesky facts.

This column is strange, actually, because you would think the French vote would be a big problem for Friedman's general thesis that the world is already and will inevitably become more flat.

The EU should be a great example of the world's flatness -- economic integration and globalization triumphing over national borders and petty local concerns. Unfortunately, according to fifty-five percent of the French population, the world is still round. Sorry Tom, the world just isn't behaving like it should.

So naturally, in the face of these inconvenient facts, Friedman is going to admit that globalization is an uneven process, constrained by culture and politics, and that broad generalizations about complex economic and technological trends is exceedingly difficult. Right?

Wrong. Instead, Friedman accuses French voters of being stuipd and lazy. According to Friedman, the French are saying "stop the world, we want off." They've "lost their appetite for hard work." He even claims to feel sorry for them. I'm sure they appreciate your condescention, Tom.

Friedman compares the naive, socialist, cheese-eating surrender monkeys with the enlightened, capitalist, daal-eating outsource tigers of India. In India, "there is a huge famine breaking out...But it is not for food. It is a hunger for opportunity." (Actually, Tom, there is still a problem with real famine in India, but nevermind.)

So if Friedman is right, the evidence must clearly indicate that France is a poor country that has foolishly closed itself off from the world while India is a rich paradise that is firmly locked into the global economy? Unfortunately, according to the pesky "statistics" of the World Bank, France's GDP is approximately three times greater than India, and the value of France exports in goods and services is approximately five times greater than India.

They may be lazy socialists, but the French do have a distinct comparative advantage in intellectual punditry. Maybe the New York Times could outsource Tom Friedman's column? Jean Baudrillard could write fictional letters from the spectral ghost of Arafat to a hyperreal Ariel Sharon about ugly Americans visiting Disneyland.

It wouldn't make much sense, but then again, neither does Tom Friedman.

What a jackass.

To read more on this column: see Almost Girl, Gawker, QandO, and Jay Reding.

"America's DNA" (June 1st, 2005)

2005-05-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's New York Times, Tom Friedman speculates that America's reaction to 9/11 might unintentionally lead "to an erosion of core elements of American identity."

Not exactly an original argument, but I'm sure Tom will back it up with lots of hard evidence and examples of specific policies, right?

Wrong. Instead we get random anecdotes. U.S. embassies are surrounded by concrete barriers. Tom's foreign friends have a hard time getting visas to enter the U.S.

This is a classically awful Tom Friedman column. First, its filled with random, useless acts of self-promotion. He spends a paragraph promoting his daughter's school project. He spends another paragraph detailing how random people approach him and tell him how much they love his column. Please, Tom, tell us more about the genius that springs from your loins and your legions of adoring fans.

Second, it presents little or no evidence to support his main contention. Friedman's main evidence of a shift in America's "identity" - concrete barriers around embassies, visa restrictions, quotes from Oxford professors and Indian writers?

These are anecdotes not evidence. And even if we accept them as evidence, they hardly indicate any deep seated shift in American identity.

Are we to believe that our foreign embassies didn't have concrete barriers before 9/11? And how exactly are concrete barriers connected to "American identity"?

I'm deeply skeptical of any talk of an "American identity". Its one of those things that can never be defined or measured in any reliable way. Plus, "American identity", if it exists, is probably a lot more complex than Friedman assumes. America's past is filled with as much xenophobia and violence as it is openess and acceptance. Friedman's America of flying birds, mixing people, sparking ideas, and broken stereotypes is nice but its also a fantasy.

Friedman recommends a "national commission to look at all the little changes we have made in response to 9/11."

Great idea! Lets form a concrete barrier commission. We'll call its members the blockheads, and the chairman can be Tom Friedman. To improve relations with the Muslim world, we'll paint giant happy faces on the front doors of our embassies and open our borders to everyone who owns a copy of The World Is Flat.

What a jackass.

To read more on this column: see Gawker, My Take on Politics, Hey City Zen!, and Master of the Computer.