Glenn Greenwald has a few words on Tom Friedman:
Friedman is truly one of the most frivolous, dishonest, and morally bankrupt public intellectuals burdening this country. Yet he is, of course, still today, one of the most universally revered figures around, despite — amazingly enough, I think it's more accurate to say "because of" — his advocacy of the invasion of Iraq, likely the greatest strategic foreign policy disaster in America's history.
My first clue that the Baker Group was completely full of shit came when I learned that they had spent an hour listening to what Tom Friedman had to say.
The Washington punditocracy is rightly under fire right now and in full CYA mode for having been wrong about the war in Iraq from start to finish. It seems like there is nothing they can do or say that will disqualify these people from continuing to flap their gums and wag their empty heads as they offer one useless opinion after another, and you have to wonder how long the situation will drag on by virtue of the fact that they continue to wedge themselves in the middle of the national debate out of pure vanity.
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Zero
Bring our troops home
I despise that moh-ron, Jane!
(kudos to Christy)
What really gets me is why so many of the heavy-weights think Friedman is so damn brilliant on the world scene. I can’t stand this ridiculous man.
triciawrites @ 2
YES!
It seems that Mr. Friedman went to Brandeis and, much later, was a cheerleader for the attack on Iraq. Hmmm. Just sayin’.
Markinsanfran @ 6
Friedman is a F’head.
Hopefully more people will get fed up with it all, and come to places like this to interact with serious people like, say….Joe Wilson, instead of being spoon fed nonsense from idiots like Fried-Man.
Friedman has been so totally over the top in his support of US intervention in the Middle East that it is is clear he is pushing his own (ethnic/religious/national) interests over those of the US more broadly. His calling to re-invade Iraq (!!!! OMG !) says it all. And it sums up how nuts his perspective is, and that of other neo-cons like him. And, except here, too few people have been willing call him out for his. Great post!
Gergen and Barry babbling on Eightball.
What (besides his support of the Iraq war, apparently) do people (e.g. readers of this blog and others) dislike so much about Tom Friedman? I read one of his books for a class I was taking and did not get an unfavorable impression of him, but I have not read his columns and don’t know a whole lot about him.
Opinions, anybody?
Mostly, Friedman just wears turtlenecks and goes on the circuit and spews recycled garbage in a practiced and modulated tone.
He’s an enormous ass.
(apologies to donkeys and mules everywhere!)
How is it that I have never seen nor heard this Loser on television?
I go out of my way to avoid Billo and Hannidate but still end up seeing them occasionally. Not so with Friedman.
Luck, I suppose.
Balrog @ 13
I’ve managed it by avoiding TV news like a polonium enema. Doesn’t sound like you’re quite as fastidious.
Friedman is the Walrus.
And he is as disingenuous and dangerous as his namesake in the classic Lewis Caroll poem, The Walrus and the Carpenter.
I encourage you to read the poem again, with Friedman in mind. Here’s a link:
http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html
Balrog @ 13
You must not be watching the Sunday morning talking heads. Whatever you’re doing, it’s working so keep doing it. If you value your sanity anyway. ;)
10 months or 10 years—what a jerk! Friedman should be forced to ensconce himself in the Green Zone until further notice. THEN we’ll see what he has to say–how about 10 minutes? This scoundrel, along with Judith Miller, Bob Woodward and a few other “centrist” journalistic voices, was instrumental in enabling the war. There’s blood all over his hands.
neurophius @ 11
He is a tool of his economic class. His wife is heiress to a fortune valued at about 2.5 Billion (yeah, with a “B”). See David Sirota’s takedown here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..26164.html
jane, that’s a great picture that says so much about the petulant and malicious ego that is mr. friedman. But in the eyes of the DC pundits he’s probably considered mainstream; a safe, healthy alternative to the born-again neo-cons that won’t suddenly pounce like a Noam Chomsky or Fromkin and tell them that they’re all suckers. He’s their kind of guy, so of course they’d listen to him — even if my local mechanic has a better sense of what we should do in iraq that tom effin “the world is flat because we bombed it that way” friedman.
You need to read his NYT op ed pieces. Whatever intelligence he may have once displayed has now been obviated by emotionality and his personal drive to ‘win’ in Iraq (i.e. set up permanent US control here), i.e. removing any potential enemies of Israel in the Middle East. Sometimes, as in his call to re-invade Iraq, this takes on ludicrous dimensions. Israel and the U.S. has no friend in Friedman.
*xyz @ 15
He’s Paul McCartney?
(Sorry, couldn’t resist :))
neurophius @ 11
Glenn has a piece up that I just read. I highly recommend it for some background on this piece of work,Friedman.
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/
neurophius @ 11
Right now, speaking for myself only, Friedman’s position on Iraq is a sufficient condition for finding this man distasteful. The Palestinian “question” might be another. ;)
Thanks for the Friedman info. I am going to follow the links and read the recommended pieces now.
Markinsanfran @ 18
I don’t really worry too much about that. What his wife is worth doesn’t necessarily affect his annoying pundit mannerism.
To me it’s the fact that he’s so full of shit and has spread it so liberally (ha, pun almost intended) over the past years with no apparent scrutiny as to, you know, actual fact value. His whole “i talked to a cab driver the other day, so here’s what I know to be true” schtick gets really old when it is taken as the gospel.
My old boss thought Friedman walked on water — he’d call management meetings to discuss strategy in light of the pontifications found in his “lexus and the olive branch” book. That’s just scary when Friedman clearly is too busy listening to the little voices in his head and his fake cab driver sources to actually check out the real world.
Hope I’m not going too far off on a tangeant here, but Wikipedia has more on The Walrus and the Carpenter:
“There are many interpretations of the poem, the majority of which depict the Walrus and Carpenter to be corrupt leaders (whether it be in politics, religion, or business) leading their followers astray (in the form of the little oysters). The poem is often suggested to illustrate the nature of genocide.
One such interpretation is that the Walrus and Carpenter symbolize the British government: the oysters symbolizing the lands the British government colonized and monopolized over time that didn’t belong to them, such as China, India, and Africa.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T….._Carpenter
He is the Walrus *xyz!
Thanks for that.
neuro– he sounds sane, but he ain’t.
garbage in = garbage out.
Did someone mention Noam Chomsky above? Friedman isn’t fit to shine Mr. Chomsky’s shoes.
I have such rage against Friedman. For me, he is Lieberman’s slightly more articulate younger brother (in some ways even worse). Like Lieberman, he comes across as a granny (no bad intended, i.e. sweet, supportive, full of humanity), but is vicious to any who oppose his point of view.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 28
but I would pay big bucks to see them debate!
oh, yeah.
I love when Charlie Rose interviews Friedman. The two of them create such a mind-numbing intellectual black hole that I was able to give up electro-shock therapy.
catfood @ 31
707!
Friedman (unit)
From Wikipedia,
Examples of Mr. Friedman using his FU:
“The next six months in Iraq… are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time”: November 30, 2003.
“What we’re gonna find out… in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war”: October 3, 2004.
“I think we’re in the end game now…. I think we’re in a six-month window here where it’s going to become very clear”: September 25, 2005.
“I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse”: December 18, 2005.
“I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq” : March 2, 2006.
Many other entertainers, Joe Lieberman, for example have also used the “Friedman unit” in discussing Iraq.
Friedman’s position on Iraq? WHAT position on Iraq- he changes it weekly– from I was wrong- so wrong- and we should never have invaded– to “Oh we now have hope- I wasn’t wrong after all- this could end up bein a great thing..
He has some kind of strange brain chemistry that causes him to attack himself daily..The Woody Allen of punditry..
He’s a wast of time in my opinion.
No one, but no one, has dispatched Friedman with greater, erm, dispatch than Matt Taibbi in his review of The World Is Flat. Trust me on this.
John Casper @ 33
I like it.
First Clue: “Baker”
a greatpice jane, a great point, however these idiots aren’t “wedging themselve in the middle of the debate”, they are thrust to the middle
there is nobody there to challenge their credecntials and since the neo cons want the destabalizaiton of the middle east to go forever, they get these people booked time and again, spewing more of their moronic opnions agan and again
the very first thing an interviewer must do when these people are “booked” is ask them point blank:
“you’ve been wrong on every prediction, it’s becuase of your “opinion” we initiated the most embarrasing military campaign in American history, and I want to know how you have the nerve to think anyone on the planet should take you seriously”
something along those lines would be quite refreshing
ralphbon @ 35
707!
Wait a second. Has Bush ever visited NORAD?
I’m not laughing any more.
This is the list of former officials and experts interviewed by the ISG from their site. Of course, they interviewed many current and foreign officials as well.
Bill Clinton – former President of the United States
Walter Mondale – former Vice President of the United States
Madeleine K. Albright – former United States Secretary of State
Warren Christopher – former United States Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger – former United States Secretary of State
Colin Powell – former United States Secretary of State
George P. Schultz – former United States Secretary of State
Samuel R. Berger – former United States National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brezezinski – former United States National Security Advisor
Anthony Lake – former United States National Security Advisor
General Brent Scowcroft – former United States National Security Advisor
General Eric Shinseki – former Chief of Staff of the United States Army
General Anthony Zinni – former Commander, United States Central Command
General John Keane – former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army
Admiral Jim Ellis – former Commander of United States Strategic Command
General Joe Ralston – former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO
Lt. General Roger C. Schultz – former Director of the United States Army National Guard
Douglas Feith – former United States Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Mark Danner – The New York Review of Books
Larry Diamond – Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Thomas Friedman – New York Times
Leslie Gelb – President Emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations
Richard Hill – Director, Office of Strategic Initiatives and Analysis, CHF International
Richard C. Holbrooke – former Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations
Martin S. Indyk – Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, The Brookings Institution
Ronald Johnson – Executive Vice President for International Development, RTI International
Frederick Kagan – The American Enterprise Institute
Arthur Keys Jr. – President and CEO, International Relief and Development
William Kristol – The Weekly Standard
* Guy Laboa – Kellogg, Brown & Root
Nancy Lindborg – President, Mercy Corps
Michael O’Hanlon – Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution
George Packer – The New Yorker
Carlos Pascual – Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution
Robert Perito – Senior Program Officer, United States Institute of Peace
* Col. Jack Petri, USA (Ret.) – adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior
Kenneth Pollack – Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, The Brookings Institution
Thomas Ricks – The Washington Post
Zainab Salbi – Founder and CEO, Women for Women International
Matt Sherman – former Deputy Senior Advisor and Director of Policy, Iraqi Ministry of Interior
Strobe Talbott – President, The Brookings Institution
Rabih Torbay – Vice President for International Operations, International Medical Corps
George Will – The Washington Post
http://www.usip.org/isg/isg_meetings.pdf
ralphbon– thank you! I love this:
The aims and interests of the American Government, when smelted down to the base metal, is economic and military colonization of lesser nations in possession of things America wants or needs.
Put a thousand flowery garlands of exquisite loquacity around the pedestal upon which imperial aims are placed for worship, and it all looks and smells so moral, and heartfelt, and civilized, and necessary, and right.
The pundit class is a subset of the political class. The entire pundit / politico class have the task of keeping a thousand fresh garlands around that pedestal every damned day of the week, so very little of the base metal shows.
It must get tiresome. I doubt they speak in flowery terms in private, in the washrooms and cloakrooms and dining rooms of power. It must get tedious, lying in public to the public.
But they all have needles in their hands, and thread in their heads, and it’s a living.
Is it just me or does Ol Sixty Grit look kinda cute tonight?
ralphbon @ 35
Oh. My. God.
“Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.”
Too F*cking Funny. My father-in-law tried to lend me this book. I politely demurred.
I wonder if George Will another Middle East “expert” who was interviewed by the ISG called all those who do not agree with George Bush’s war “boors”.
Riesz Fischer @ 43
Please, drink responsibly.
Riesz at 43 — it’s just you. *g*
John Casper at 46 — oh man, yours was better.
Riesz Fischer @ 43
it’s just you, dear. Visine should clear it up.
Antifa– very well written and true, imho.
Gang — just wanted to let everyone know that we’ll be having a special guest for tomorrow’s Blue America. Larry Kissell will be here to talk about launching his run for 2008. :) Thought everyone would want a heads up on that one.
Blue America will be at 2 pm ET/11 am PT tomorrow.
EvilDrPuma @
14
You’re right. Every so often I watch the bozos on C&L etc. I always regret doing it. That shout down thing they do makes me want to jump through the screen and strangle them.
So the Bush outfit is now taking the Sunni side. My Gawd. Weren’t the Sunni’s Saddam’s guys? And of course the Shiites are the Iranian’s guys (the hostage takers). The group (Iranians) that conspired with North, Poindexter and Bush the Sr. and Reagan to bring down President Carter. Almost unbelievable.
John Casper @ 46
Just Say No, I think.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 52
the bush plan was genocide from the beginning…death squads trained by us, using abu graeb was a deliberate phscological tactic to create a strong man image
Three comments, with excerpts!, within ten minutes of my post about the Taibbi piece…buncha Evelyn Woods hangin’ out here!
I think he is simply mediocre. It isn’t his fault that many people like to be spoonfed their opinions. Frustrating that his lame thinking persuaded so many usually bright people.
I think he is a prime example of very successful marketing u read this one thing and you will not have to read another book for 5 years! (Till his next one).
His opposite is aguy named Stanley Hoffmann. Do a google on some articles from 2003 and you will find someone who argued against Friedman so brilliantly.
And I saw Hoffmann on Charlie Rose and he was wearing a black turtleneck!!!
PeteCO @ 53
I was just trying to be open minded.
But seriously, I think she is trying to be nicer.
BTW, why cant I type an apostrophe without getting kicked out of the window?
The really ugly part of Kate O’ for me is her brain. And what comes out of her mouth.
There is no side we can or should take, OK (imho) and if and when we do, we will be destroying more flesh and blood and we will be wrong, yet again.
I truly believe this civil war was prompted and supported by us.
We need to leave yesterday!
John Casper @33– thanks for that list of FUs. Wow.
Glenn describes the classic Friedman logic:
He then shows how McCain thinks:
Bear in mind that the result of this logic is we (1) begin a war we shouldn’t, (2) continue a war even though it’s a catastrophe, and as a result, tens of thousands of people die. Glenn is a supremely rational, logical kind of guy, so you can see why people like Friedman and McCain, who seem to be indifferent to the horror that follows from their [lack of] logic, drive him crazy.
Long, long ago (2002?) he was a guest on Oprah along with a few others. Just a bit before that I had seen him on the Discovery channel and found him to be condescending. I’ve not liked him to the point of disliking him because of the manner in which he treated the other guests on Oprah. He was just so smug, and creepy.There’s something underlying that I can’t quite grasp. Whatever it is, I distrust his judgement. I got the idea way back then he was a whore. His words went to maintain the status quo, nothing more.
I just want out of Iraq. I want our soldiers home.
Riesz.
You are nice.
But Katie got the thumpin’ too, and she needs a job.
ergo, less venom.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 58
YES
Let’s not forget, her husband works at the Pentagon. He administered the Bush loyalty tests to everyone who got to
fuckplunder Iraq in theHallibuton no bid contractreconstruction perImperial Life Inside the Emerald City.
Hugh — interesting list. The national security brain trust for the last 30 years. But who’s missing? Who should they have talked to that they didn’t?
John Casper #33,
Thanks for the Friedman quotes. Friedman is a popularizer, recycler of other people’s ideas, and general self-promoter. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about most of the time but does so anyway, at great length.
Friedman was wrong about going into Iraq, but today I can’t disagree with him. Basically he’s right when he says if we want to win, we need to put in another 300,000 troops, or whatever number he used. If we don’t care about winning, then get the hell out. Finally he’s being a realist about it.
ralphbon @
35
Oh, that is funny.
Kathryn in MA @ 68
If TRex ever needs a couple of weeks’ vacation, maybe Matt Taibbi could fill in on Late Nite. He can do snark. He can do snark real good.
scarecrow @ 65
ummm, an Iraqi or two or more, Professor Cole, President Carter, Poppy Bush, Joe Wilson, scarecrow, Hugh, Jane, Christy, my Dad, Marc Herold, MFI, Du, Ali, Laith, Iran, Syria, Dahr Jamail, Riverbend, Michael Ware, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky…. etc.
me?
Olbermann is roarin’.
scarecrow @ 65
The old man himself.
Thanks Hugh, unfortunately, I bought his shtick in 2002, based on the imprimatur of the New York Times, so I’m really pissed at him. There was so much I just “didn’t get” back then.
Christy Hardin Smith @
50
DAMN, that’s early for me :) I’ll be there, though.
an Iraqi or two, that is brilliant.
EPU’d. Want to improve on the current state of US/former USSR relations?
To help push back against the insanity:
Wworking for peace between the US and Russia for 10 years: Russian Medical Fund, I’m the president.
ralphbon @
35
Sigh. And countless others have also dismembered Friedman before Glenn Greenwald’s latest.
But HOW do you actually dispatch someone like Friedman, who cannot be shamed away? He’s like the freaking Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. If he deigned to notice Taibbi’s amputation and Greenwald’s disembowelment of his drivel, would Friedman claim they’re only “flesh wounds”?!
angie @ 70
Hell, they could have had interviewed Tom Hanks playing Forrest Gump and gotten something slightly more insightful than Friedman or George Fucking Will was going to offer.
Oklahoma kiddo @
58
I miss the sporadic visits to FDL by Kate O’Bierne’s teeth.
Mimir @ 77
Great comment! I’ve just met you – i’m very happy to make your acquaintance!
Mimir:
Force him into daylight? Pour water on him?
Keep doing what we are doing, I guess.
Richard Wolffe on Olberman says Bush is giving us “circular” logic on Iraq. I wouldn’t have put it exactly that way.
gotta run–big lightning and booms here now!
angie @ 70
Scarecrows don’t do foreign policy; it just scares people. Of course, Doug Feith and Bill Kristol are pretty scary too.
Re “an Iraqi or two,” I thought Baker talked to several foreign diplomats — from Syria, Iran and Iraq, plus Tony Blair. Hugh’s list seems to be just the Americans.
Mimir @
77
Brilliant! Heres my favorite line from Matts takedown:
Man flies on planes, observes the wonders of capitalism, says we’re not in Kansas anymore. (He actually says we’re not in Kansas anymore.) That’s the whole plot right there.
Brilliant!
Turley on KO NOW
Olbermann: “Negroponte is wandering off the reservation.”
Based on listening to Gen. McCaffrey and David Gergan on Hardball, GOP is
screaming attelling Bush to payfuckingattention to the Iraq Slow-Learner’s Group.anyone else finding the naked xrays to be pretty creepy?
anyone want their kids naked for the TSA guys?
Another of the Jewish American/Zionist/neocons who have been stroking each other off about how smart they are and how they have the inside view of the middle east and how tough they are. They’ve met Bebe and know how to deal with the Arab street. It’s all bullshit. Kristol, Feith, Perle, Rubin, Cohen, Zelikow, Wolfy, Lieberman-you could go on and on. Unfortunately, they found kindred spirits in Dick, Rummy, Condi, Bush and many others for their perfect storm. They all have a lot to answer for. I only hope they get it in this world.
nothing wrong with Iraqi-Americans, is there?
Norman Lear on PBS discussing the damage done to the mainstream media
OldCoastie @ 88
They put digital fig-leafs in a patch across the pubis and the chest area can be de-focused by the supervisor.
scarecrow #65,
Jimmy Carter comes to mind, Antnio Guterres, the head of the UNHCR (Kofi Annan was interviewed), maybe someone from the Red Cross or Human Rights Watch, other heads of NGOs with experience in the Middle East, academics not associated with the usual think tanks. I mean Iraq is not exactly Rashid Khalidi’s main area but I would have liked to hear his thoughts about it. And of course those who correctly saw that Iraq was a mistake and a disaster in the making.
OldCoastie @ 88
Yes.
Newt Gingrich
I saw Rashid Khalidi on the NEWS HOUR and I thought he was terrific.
scarecrow @ 65
Maybe more to the point, who among these were listened to, and who were just allowed to speak?
And of those listened to, which of them were heeded? Or was the whole affair just a scripted waltz, a gala affair at which Don James aka “Big Jim” Baker fronted to the world an air of concern and caring while in the back room the program was refined and properly aged, crumpled and smoothed, stained and torn, to be presented as a “found” map, with a big red X that showed the way?
egregious @
76
привет, Egregious!
любоваться сокр много
From the site: No one gets paid, not even our president, a Harvard MBA who speaks Russian.
Thomas Friedman…one of the richest pundits in the US.
He married money.
So no matter how ridiculous his ideas…and they are many…he is considered and expert.
Luckily he doesn’t have to work because his wife has money.
But it is a nice hobby for him.
scarecrow @ 84
Oh, you are so spot on and perspicacious so much of the time on foreign policy that I would be doing a happy dance were you involved!
I just wonder if those Syrian, Iranian, and Iraqi consultants were those that are and were disaffected and in the pocket of those wanting to topple regimes over there a la Chalabi.
I’d like one of what John Casper is drinking tonight, please!
John Casper @ 87
Yes. That’s the way I heard it too; plus with Gergen sounding realistic about how pointless and disappointing the president’s personal globe trotting diplomacy appeared, McCaffrey pretty much agreed. We’ve missed all the off-ramps and there are nothing but awful choices. Gergen seemed particularly concerned that the rest of the country/world sees we have to change policy, but Bush is still stuck on same ol’, same ol’.
The next thing I’m waiting for is for some “prominent” official (we have loose definitions in this age) to say: “To solve the problem, we need these people to resign.” It’s staring us right in the face, and no one is saying it. I hope we’re much less than a FU from that event.
I think Friedman’s wealth helps explain his position. He has secured a comfortable station in life and he does not want the boat rocked.
The current wealth of the investor class depends a great deal on separating the working class from pensions and health care benefits, and shipping the jobs underlying those benefits to authoritarian regimes.
Tom’s job is to snooker us into accepting this. The world is flat, only those with skills need apply (blame the victim). I have often wondered – if a local manufacturing plant is turning out widgets, the employees evidently have the skills to make widgets. If China is not making widgets, then they obviously don’t have the skills. Why send the widget jobs to China? It is obviously not the unskilled American workers CEO’s love to talk about (and who’s education corporations avoid paying for by getting sweetheart deals on property taxes). Given that dynamic, I can only conclude the reason is costs, and a political regime that will keep those costs low.
Tom is just a tool corporations use to keep us standing still while our pockets are picked.
My list at #40 is just “former officials and experts”. The PDF with the complete list is here:
http://www.usip.org/isg/isg_meetings.pdf
It includes Iraqi representatives of the government and the political parties, representatives from most of the regional states, officials from defense, intelligence, and state, and various members of the House and Senate. I agree ordinary Iraqis were not heard, along with many others.
Mimir —
I’m afraid you’re right about my optimistic use of “dispatch.” No matter how much you drub him or scrub him, he just comes back, like grout mildew.
After reading Matt Taibbi’s demolition of Fried-Man’s Flat Earth opus, I wonder if the mustachio’d one has read Orwell, other than the obvious 1984 & Animal Farm? “Politics & the English Language” is an essay that is as applicable today as it was sixty years ago;
“The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find—this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify—that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.”
Thanks, Wikipedia, and thanks again, Eric Arthur Blair.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P…..h_Language
John Casper @ 94
he was also on Democracy Now! just the other day and I thought the same…
http://www.democracynow.org/ar…..28/1454248
there’s also a great video and transcript of Jimmy Carter available from today’s broadcast.
Jacqrat @ 99
Thanks very much, I come from a long line of alcoholics, so it must be the hot tea.
I’d like to turn Negroponte loose in the jungles of Honduras. Those people have long memories of this criminal. I was in Honduras when this man was murdering people.
Hugh — thanks. Looks like Baker interviewed the entire Iraqi Cabinet, and then some. He probably knows more about what’s going on than anyone in the US government.
Friedman is a media whore. Enough said.
Am I wrong here? Didn’t Barry and David support the invasion of Iraq. Way back when.
John Casper @ 106
Well damn. I just had one of those and I’m not nearly as clever or quick as you are tonight. To what, then do you attribute these desirable traits?
“(we have loose definitions in this age)”
LMAO
John Casper @ 113
Careful. Don’t spill the tea!
Oklahoma kiddo @
111
Absolutely, they both did. IMHO, they are finally getting just how catastrophic (that’s the new code word) this could be. Regional war in the ME could easily lead to disruptions in oil deliveries which could lead to a world wide depression.
If BushCo Inc. was serious about dealing with Iraq in a responsible manner they would have conducted a thorough housecleaning of the foreign policy apparatus. They would get rid of the people at DOD and DOS who put us into this miserable position, rather than counting on the same bunch of assholes to get us out.
deleted double post by commenter
I hate when that happens!
Mimir @
77
LOL
I dearly love that scene. (I’m not sure what that says about me; nothing good, I bet!)
followup on #98…
He’s Even Richer Than I Thought! I Was Wrong About Thomas Friedman, the World’s Wealthiest Pundit
…The lengthy profile of Friedman in The Washingtonian this summer had scant ink to spare for criticisms of Friedman’s outlook — which corporate media outlets frequently hail as brilliant. But the article did include a telling comment about him from the renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz, who said: “Participation in the new world requires resources, computers, education, and access to those is very unequally distributed. He has this high level of optimism that means that anyone can do it if they just have wills.”
Stiglitz, a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, added that Friedman has understated the impacts of “some of the forces of inequality.” And Stiglitz pointed out that “globalization inherently increases the inequalities in developing countries.”
Friedman’s great wealth is a frame for his window on the world. The Washingtonian reports that “his annual income easily reaches seven figures.” In the Maryland suburbs near Washington, three years ago, “the Friedmans built a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, now valued at $9.3 million,” on a parcel of more than seven acres near Bethesda Country Club and the Beltway.
Throughout his journalistic career, Friedman has been married to Ann Bucksbaum — heiress to a real-estate and shopping-mall fortune now estimated at $2.7 billion. When the couple wed back in 1978, according to The Washingtonian article, Friedman became part of “one of the 100 richest families in the country.”…
Just got back from the Taibbi review of the World is Flat. My favorite phrase was where he described it as “plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country.”
global yokel @ 116
In emptywheel’s latest post over at tnh, “Payback’s a Bitch,” she mentioned in a different context, that there’s a rumor that Pat Roberts may leave the Senate Intelligence Committee, altogether. As the comments evolved, emptywheel opined it might be a warning from the GOP aimed at Bush and DeadEye to pay attention to the Iraq Slow-Learners Group’s recommendations or lose you’re best obfuscator on Senate Intelligence.
All this is speculation, but maybe the GOP is finally figuring out that the extremists that most threaten them are DeadEye and the Shrub. My guess is, if Roberts doesn’t return to Senate Intelligence, it will be a sign that the GOP may not be as enthusiastic about covering up WH Intelligence manipulation as has been previously thought.
ralphbon @
35
Oh, God, yes. One of the most truly brutal reviews I’ve ever read or heard about, and my mother was a connoisseur of the brutal review and told me about many.
global yokel @ 116
You may find this post at HuffPo interesting, particularly the quote written by the Rev. Jim Wallis, on how to think about the problem. Here’s a piece:
scarecrow at 5:47 pm
Great link
Wallis is right, scarecrow.
this is about flesh and blood and justice.
we’ve been wrong, massively wrong.
My first clue was when I looked at the list of panel members. My next was early reports that they would search for a compromise position. Silly me, I thought they’d want to look for a sound one.
Darn, I missed the Worst Person in the World choices. Just saw the pictures at the last second. The guy on the right looked like the guy from the State Department who was so belligerent during the hearings on Iraq last week. What did he do to get such notoriety on KO?
Reuters:
another rat leaving a sinking ship?
Robert Fisk has asked a couple of times : What ever happened to the Tom Friedman I knew in Lebanon 25 years ago ? Friedman was a good reporter once . For what he is today, read
Glen Greenwald.
scarecrow @ 126
3. Willard and his illegals
2. Morton Kondrake (sp?)
1 BillO again.
scarecrow @ 127
Mitt Romney, Mort Kondracke, and Bill O’Lielly
RevDeb @ 128
Or cashing in at some rightwing non-thinking tub. How long before he appears on Fox as a military/defense “expert.”
John Casper @ 121
Nah, just more rats fleeing a sinking ship and attempting to swim to safety.
Folks like Tom Friedman would punditly proffer these critters as “heroes on a heroic journey”, but all they are is rats, bottom-feeding, lowlife, steenking lousy rats!
does not really matter if the rats are leaving, history will judge them harshly and I have a long memory myself and will tell the tale forevah.
Like Hitler and Brezhnev, Bush is in Denial
by Robert Fisk
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1201-34.htm
perhaps my daily dose of contempt for Joe Lieberman should be directed instead at Tom Friedman.
angie @ 134
The Internet has an even longer memory. In the past, second tier players like Cambone who was so instrumental in promoting our use of torture could slither off into the night without ever being noticed. Now his history is just a google click away.
“And now the icing on the cake, the ubersteroid that makes it all mobile: wireless. Wireless is what allows you to take everything that has been digitized, made virtual and personal, and do it from anywhere.”
lifted the above from the Matt Taibbi review.
Ain’t that flattening wonderful. Now you can detonate an IUD from anywhere.
I think that’s an IED although the IUD thing is an interesting concept.
true on both points, Hugh.
707
Is GWB pulling another ‘Harriet Miers’ stunt with his oppositional/defiant Deciderness on Iraq?
New thread.
More On Polonium-210.
Hugh @ 137
Too true.
The lake’s us, and the olive branch
punaise @ 135
Contempt is like love, in an opposite way. Does a mother’s love grow divided and lessened for each child born? No, her love grows and encompasses them all.
I find that my store of contempt grows, and while it can never be enough, it will suffice.
Speaking of Cambone, one cable channel shows the sheriff torturing Wesley in the Princess Bride, and the next channel shows the Russians torturing Rambo.
scarecrow @ 146
I prefer Jack Black torturing (just figuratively) the school kids in the School of Rock.
Hugh at 6:07 p
LMAO
I still prefer to detonate them the old fashioned way, by plunging manually.
John Casper @ 148
Easy for you two to laugh, it ain’t an IUD inside of you!
better an IUD than a DUI
punaise @ 151
And how do you detonate a DUI?
And how do you detonate a DUI?
rather, it gets detanoted
RevDeb @ 152
ask the preznit.
punaise @ 136
Surely there is enough contempt to go around?
Hah. Not only was _The World is Flat_ required reading last year for those of us trapped working in higher education, we had to watch the freakin’ *video* of Friedman smugly delivering his half-hour recap of the book to an adoring audience in somewhere like Southern California.
It seems that the higher education accrediting agencies are just now discovering the management buzzwords of the 90s, continuous quality improvement, blah, blah, blah, so Friedman seems like manna from the future to them.
Ah, for the old days, when you just had to teach instead of having to treat your students as regurgitators of “measurable outcomes” so you could proved that your are engaged in “institutional effectiveness.”
Jane — leaving this deep in the EPU zone for you (I seem to do that more frequently of late, sorry, unintentionally bad timing).
My first impression after reading Hugh’s list above is not that Friedman was consulted for advice. Why George Will, for that matter?
I think this is pure marketing — but then I believe the report that will be published next week for public consumption is a marketing tool, propaganda. The real playbook in use now does not have the imprimature of the ISG; it was written with Baker’s assistance and will not be published.
Friedman was “consulted” as a part of the playbook already in use, and not to get feedback from him. Friedman is being enlisted without his own knowledge as part of the process of “buy-in”. If Pachuatec’s around, ask him how important buy-in is to cultural change and paradigm shifts in corporate projects; it’s absolutely essential, in my experience, to get buy-in from the folks who are opinion makers (opinion makers are not necessarily the brightest bulbs, but for this purpose, they don’t have to be), as well as the rest of the team expected to implement the project. Without buy-in, it is highly likely that these folks will sabotage the project.
In other words, Friedman is most definitely a tool — and he is being deliberately used to this end, probably without his awareness.
Again.
punaise @ 151
Sweet! During last year’s NYC transit strike, with which I sympathized, I almost regretted not being retained as a consultant for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, only because I had the perfect strike-breaking soundbite for them: The MTA is not an ATM. Lucky for the strikers, I kept it to myself.
This is EPU’d, but that’s ok, it’s for me and I hope you lingerers will indulge me. It is difficult to say goodbye to a symbol of something you once thought important.
I know about Tom Friedman. I’ve read his articles, his books and his essays. He grew up in my hometown, not two miles from where I type this now; and I was not the only one who held him in esteem, as a favorite son. You don’t win three Pulitzers and have your head up your ass. He was a very, very smart man…once.
I first slogged through From Beirut to Jerusalem at the behest of a personal mentor in the early nineties. It was a difficult read, but not because Friedman was a bad writer; rather, he is an excellent one. His reporter’s style conveys information with vibrant clarity and that was what made the book so difficult. Beirut was a horrible, horrible place. People he conjured up into your mind’s eye died with every passing sentence. And he tells these tales about ten years of his life, earning his chops, and dealing with a truly miserable situation in order to bring it to the common person in a finely distilled form. He was brilliant and I continued to think of him as such for this work alone, perhaps for quite a while longer than I should have.
His other books, I’m looking at now on my shelf: The Lexus and the Olive Tree and Longitudes and Attitudes, I read and attempted to accept as a Promethean gift from on high. The concepts of globalization he proposed, I thought were forged on an anvil of experience I could never hope to match; and, that much is certainly true. The articles in “Longitudes” were sometimes critical of the administration, but usually fair in the representation of real fact, which was different from the main stream media at the time. In retrospect his fact was non-sequitur to the actual argument about the real intelligence of engaging in the Iraq war. Ultimately, however erudite and engaging the mans words, he was very, very wrong.
The turning point came for me when I went to see him speak on his book tour for The World Is Flat at St. Paul’s historic Fitzgerald Theater. It is named, of course, after another favorite son of the area and it is the place Garrison Keillor performs his magic at for, “A Prairie Home Companion.” If you’ve never been to the Fitzgerald, don’t pass up the opportunity . It is a marvelous old opera house and the prospect of seeing someone you think highly of speaking there, well it might lead one to a heightened state.
It was here that I fell flat listening to Friedman describe how flat the world was. He kept repeating the metaphor again and again as if the audience needed to be convinced that his use of imagery was somehow divine. He is an excellent reporter; for imagery, take Proust, Friedman is a bit dry. But that wasn’t what blew the bloom from the rose for me; it was a more trivial and childish thing. Friedman described a traveling incident where he thought he had gotten to the airport early enough to check in and get his business class boarding ticket in the #1 grouping to board first. He was surprised to find that those people, arriving later than he, had already filled that grouping somehow. HE DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD DO YOUR BOARDING PASS ON THE INTERNET. Now, I fly all the time, and I work with computers so I might have been privy to this magic before the average citizen, but this man of the world might have had a bit more of a clue–trivial, right. Well, not for me. He chose this as the prime example of the evening as to why the world is, “flat.” How suddenly the unwashed masses can defeat the careful logistics of Tom Friedman by utilizing the great equalizer in the Internet. Yes, it was trivial, but it was indicative to me that his metaphor was just as trivial as his idea. Yeah, people all over the world can use this thing but will they; maybe, maybe not but it wouldn’t be by virtue of Tom Friedman framing the definition of the new world order–and that was what I thought he was trying to do.
I never read that book. And I don’t like people telling me things. And I don’t think he really knows what he’s talking about anymore. And I think he has his head up his ass.
Rayne @ 157
I’m betting you nailed it again!
Only love
Can bring the Rayne
That makes you yearn to the sky.
Only love
Can bring the Rayne
That falls like tears from on high.
Love your ideas!
JohnSwifty —
Thanks for that. You’re not alone in your esteem for the early Tom Friedman; I’ve heard Robert Fisk give high praise to Friedman’s Mideast writing and personal collegiality in the early 80’s.
Difference is, after those many years Fisk remains at the top of his game, while Friedman is only treated (by people who should, and perhaps inwardly do, know better) as if he remains there.
I saw this douchebag on Charlie Rose a couple of times peddling his BS. At first, Friedman seemed intelligent and likeable, but so do a lot of celebrities and Hollywood stars, but if you work with them or actually talk to them, they turn out to be complete idiots. The time on Charlie Rose that made me realise this is an idiotic, blood thristy, and incompetent boob was when he was on the programme right after Saddam’s statue fell. Charlie asked him “what message does this send to the rest of the world?”. Tom replied “the message it sends is…suck on this.”. Suck on this!? Hardly the words of a Pulitzer Prize winner. Not only is the line itself horrible, his delivery was atrocious. His contempt for the murder that just happened in Iraq wasn’t too much fun, either.
A lot of the MSM/pundits are running scared for several reasons, mainly because the public are realising they’ve been had. First of all, these pundits were treated like rock stars in the 1990’s, and they let that go to their heads. A lot of people are starting to realise a lot of things that were supposed to be true in the 1990’s, but ended up being lies…
People are realising that Bill Clinton is not a good Democrat, and in fact decimated the Democratic party in the 1990’s with his triangulation. Pundits are not rock stars, they are idiots. In fact, speaking of rock stars of the 1990’s, people are realising the ones popular in the 90’s weren’t as good as people thought they were, Pulp Fiction was overrated to high hell, Brittney Spears is not smart, funny, and a virgin, and, is, in fact, pure, unadulterated white trash, George W. Bush is not a “good guy”, free trade deals are BS, and sincerity counts for a lot.
johnSwifty — thank you, you are far too kind.
Friedman’s earlier capacities for better work are what make him incredibly useful as a tool. In his salad days, he had not been as removed from reality by the circle in which he’d married, worked and socialized, and could write more authentically. But as he was more deeply and thoroughly affected by his environment of privilege, he didn’t have to write material that was as compelling to impact others. This may or may not have been a conscious choice; getting positive strokes from members of the top most percentiles may have been enough to encourage this kind of slackening effort.
For most Americans — not the minority of folks you are rubbing shoulders with here in the Toobz and especially not at FDL — the fact that someone has been repeatedly published conveys a cachet of approval. Add the appearance of access to power as an additional seal of approval, and you have the all that’s needed to make Friedman a highly successful tool.
The pols, pundits and money approve of him; the people have been encouraged to believe him.
Presto, a cut-out.
Rayne @ 164
It’s like Hollywood. Once you become sucked in by the system, your individuality and your uniqueness disappear.
Janeane — absolutely. There is nothing unique about them, even how they spend their money is not unique.
Rayne @ 166
I know. Just another round of useful idiots. The pundits (and many Hollywood celebrities) are quite stupid and so incredibly vain. Vanity is the reason they won’t admit they’ve been so incredibly wrong about everything over the last 26 years or so.
My first clue?
Other than Baker?
Hamilton.
See his work “investigating” Iran-Contra. Or the October Surprise. He’s a one-man coverup machine.
I’m with Antifa @ 42.
Most of these pundits, uncle tom included, are simply disguising the real agenda of capital… which runs your world… has no intention of NOT EVER running your world… and has no intention of what they are about.
It’s the classic bait and switch.. a little democracy chatter here, a little FREE trade there… lofty little ideas to hide there agenda of exploitation of people… to rif raf… for their wealth.
Heck.. they even gave the unwashed masses the urge to “go property” with their little american wet dreams of owning property and being enslaved to banks for 20-40 yrs…
Capitalism is pretty nasty stuff when you pull back the curtain.. it’s all about deliverin’ a hurtin to the weakest for the benefit of the sleekest.
Ain’t it great to have all these multi millionairs telling you how it is.. what to think… and why their way is the highway?
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and that is absolutely true. As soon as someone gets big lungs and speaks truth to power some lone nut decides they don’t care for the fella and shoot him dead. Works every time.
First these bubble heads do their media take downs and then the kill comes and then they whitewash the image to become nothing more than a dashboard jesus for every mind.
They are after the internets now and they will take that one away from you. It’s too damn populist and democratic. Watch
Paul Rosenberg @
168
Me too. But as a real load-drivin’ hammer to get those coffin nails through, Tom Friedman (an hour?!!!) ain’t bad.
Baker Group = Junior’s Fanny-Wiping Committee.
They talk to Friedman, but not to Juan Coles or Helena Cobham?