Friedman Returns!

After a hiatus of more than a month (not book-leave, one must hope), Friedman has been up to his usual hijinks lately, dropping two columns within the last week about the Middle East.

Yesterday's column, "After Cairo, It's Clinton Time," is grating for two reasons, the first somewhat trivial, the second somewhat not.

Devoted Friedman followers might recall that in 2003, the mustachioed marvel appeared on Charlie Rose to deliver his in-your-face message to America's enemies in Iraq: "Suck. On. This." Well, six years later, Friedman apparently has still not gotten it into his head that the trash-talking is best left for the basketball court (or, in Friedman equivalent, the putting green or tennis court). Reviewing the bloody civil conflict that broke out in the vacuum created by the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, Friedman writes:

Liberated from Saddam's iron fist, each Iraqi community tested its strength against the others, saying in effect: "Show me what you got, baby."

I don't know how many Times editors signed off on that "baby," but if there was ever a single word that was more badly in need of being cut, I can't think of it.

The more troubling element of the column comes in the sixth paragraph, when Friedman writes:

I have never bought the argument that Iraq was the bad war, Afghanistan the good war and Pakistan the necessary war. Folks, they’re all one war with different fronts. It’s a war within the Arab-Muslim world between progressive and anti-modernist forces over how this faith community is going to adapt to modernity — modern education, consensual politics, the balance between religion and state and the rights of women.

A most interesting interpretation, there. (And a very convenient one, for a prominent cheerleader of the Iraq invasion.)

Yup, that's right folks -- the war in Iraq isn't one that we started, based on false intelligence and crackpot visions of transforming the country into a beacon of democracy and progressivism. Instead, it's more like it was already going on, and we just kind of jumped in on the side of the good guys. And what about the Iraq war pulling resources away from the mission in Afghanistan? Nope, folks -- all the same war, can't think about it like that.

Tom, Tom, Tom -- it's six years later, the near-universal consensus among pretty much every human being on the planet is that the invasion was a gigantic mistake, and a terrible way to go about reforming the Arab world ... maybe it's about time you dropped the charade and just admitted it?

Friedman Comes Out Against Torture, Logical Consistency

Take a look at today's column. If anyone can find a coherent position on torture, or the war on terror, or Iraq, or anything at all, for that matter, please let me know, because I sure as hell can't.

Friedman's columns are often vapid, and cliched, and grating, and self-serving, but I'll at least give him this — they're usually pretty clear: We need a carbon tax. We should invest more in science. We should grant more visas to highly educated immigrants. We should invade Iraq and turn it into a beacon of progressivism and democracy. Yada yada yada.

This column, by contrast, is a logical mess. As I understand it, Friedman's position is as follows: Torture is wrong. Obama was right to ban it. Bush Administration officials crossed the line, and members of the military murdered detainees. However, al Qaeda is really, really evil, and terrorists want to kill lots of people, and don't love their children, and they were maybe planning to use weapons of mass destruction. So the rules are different, and we shouldn't prosecute Bush Administration officials. Also, it would be politically divisive, and apparently bipartisanship now ranks above the rule of law and morality on the list of things we should be concerned about upholding.

Oh, and if you thought that defeating al Qaeda in Iraq would make America safer, you were wrong. Because victory in Iraq is actually going to increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack on American soil. Why? Because it's like a Hail Mary pass. And you can't argue with a sports metaphor.

Everybody! Over here! Look at me!

Remember that system of freewheeling global capitalism Thomas Friedman spent the better part of his career championing? Well, it recently drove the world economy off a cliff. So what's the solution? Did you guess fundamental reform of global finance? Good work — but that's only half the answer. What's the other half? Well, it's none other than the same set of environmental policies Friedman has been peddling in his books, columns, lectures and neighborhood grocery store (probably) for the last five or six years.

Yes, in a clever sleight of hand in his most recent column, Friedman manages to recast the financial meltdown as a desperate plea from Mother Nature to reduce carbon emissions. Don't get me wrong — I'm a firm supporter of reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment. But in the true Friedman spirit of colorful if tortured analogies, isn't this a bit like KFC trying to convince us that the economic crisis is a clear indication that we all need to be eating a lot more fried chicken, or Billy Blanks trying to convince us that the only road to economic recovery is for everyone to start doing Tae Bo?

Anti-mustache propaganda

Some people do not appreciate TF's penetrating insights. Their loss. But I will say that the mustache will prevail. He always prevails.

Hat-tip to SC.

High Mannerism in the Work of Friedman

For someone who frequently extols the virtues of innovation, Thomas Friedman's columns often take a staggeringly unoriginal form. Today's column, about the recession, is a prime example of what might be called the mustachioed marvel's High Mannerist period.

What follows is the outline of many a Friedman column in recent years. Seriously, you could probably program a computer to write these things.

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"Are we all crazy?"
By Thomas L. Friedman

The other day, I was talking with my friend from (name of a somewhat exotic Third World country), and he told me something striking: "(Quote that expresses bafflement at some aspect of American politics or society.)"

Really, folks — have we completely lost our minds? Our politicians are all acting like children. Can you believe how stupid they are?

I fear for future generations. Folks, we need to get this country back on track. And we can easily do that if we heed my advice and (painfully obvious policy proposal, almost certainly involving renewable energy, training more scientists or a return to America's classic values, vaguely defined). If we don't do it soon, it might be too late.

"(Quote that basically restates everything Friedman just talked about)," said (some quasi-public figure and good friend of Friedman's, likely to be Johns Hopkins international affairs scholar Michael Mandelbaum or entrepreneur Dov Seidman). "(Quote that once again basically restates everything Friedman said above, only in slightly different way.)"

But I'm optimistic here. Because after all, this is America, the country that (brief, inspirational recap of America's past accomplishments).

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And there you have it. Just master this simple outline, and you can try writing your very own Friedman columns at home!

Lazy Sunday

To be sure, the mustachioed marvel isn't known for wearing out the old shoe leather. As he told the New Yorker back in November, "I write my books by writing my books ... I don't start with six months of research." However, even by Friedman's own standards, his last two columns have demonstrated a degree of laziness that would make even the most shameless high school slacker cringe.

First, on Wednesday, Friedman made not one, but two points for which the principal evidence was the ordering of suggestions in the Google drop-down search box:

1) "Go to Google and type in these four letters: m-e-r-e. Before you go any further, Google will list the possible things or people you’re searching for, and at the top of that list will be the name “Meredith Whitney.” She comes up before “merengue” and “Meredith Viera.” Who is Meredith Whitney? She is a banking analyst who became famous for declaring last year, long before others, that Citigroup was up to its neck in bad mortgages and would not likely survive in its present form. Do you know how many people have to be searching for you if all you have to do is put in four letters and your name pops up first? A lot!"

Do you know how much gall it takes to submit a column to the most highly respected newspaper on the planet that makes arguments based on such trivial facts? A lot!

Friedman concludes Wednesday's column with this stunning discovery:

2) "For now, though, the banks still threaten to consume the Obama presidency. Indeed, I’m sorry to report that if you just type two letters into Google — “b-a” — the first thing that comes up is not Barack Obama. It’s “Bank of America.” Barack Obama is third."

But good news, everyone! I'm happy to report that if you just type two letters into Google — "d-e" — the first thing that comes up is not depression. It's Dell, as in the computer company. Depression is eighth. The economy's going to be all right, after all!

Sunday's column, meanwhile, leads off with a full paragraph from an Onion article, to illustrate a point about American consumer excess. Tom, I'm not telling you that you're not allowed to engage in Internet procrastination. It's something we all do, from time to time. It's just that, well, it's probably best to avoid drawing attention to it. At least get out of the office and talk to a cabbie, or something.

Tom's speaking fees fall; mustache in peril?

"To explain how dire the economic situation is right now, one could mention General Motors, or bring up General Electric, or, hey, there's always the latest jobs report.

The following tidbit of information, however, suggests how serious things really are:

• Based on data obtained from dinner chit-chat painstakingly gathered throughout the day, it appears that Thomas Friedman's speaking fees have recently fallen by 25%.

Of course, this could be because his speaker profile is a bit out of date."

From Dan Drezner's blog.