Thomas Friedman gave readers his pseudo endorsement of a candidate for president today. The person is David Walker, who headed up the Government Accountability Office from 1998 to 2008 before leaving to take the helm as president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. He later left that organization to head up another Peter Peterson funded venture.

Walker has been in the public eye over for more than a decade as a result of his crusade against the government budget deficit.

The NY Times continues its policy of affirmative action for people ignorant of the world by allowing Thomas Friedman to write two columns a week on whatever he chooses. Today he talks about the job crisis.

Thomas Friedman is once again orthogonal to reality. In his column today he urges a “grand bargain” where the Republicans abandon extremists of the right and agree to tax increases and Democrats abandon extremists of the left and agree to cut Medicare and Social Security (euphemistically referred to as “entitlements”). There is one little problem with Friedman’s story…

The United States has to cut back spending on the Commerce Department or it will bankrupt the country. Okay, I have no evidence for this and it really doesn’t make any sense. The Commerce Department’s budget is about $10 billion a year, less than 0.3 percent of total spending, but this note is written in the spirit of Thomas Friedman.

Just as Thomas Friedman can tell readers that Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting the country with no evidence, in my blognote I get to blame the Commerce Department. The reality of course is that Social Security is fully funded by its own dedicated tax revenue through the year 2036, meaning the program on net imposes no burden on the government.

If I were President Obama’s English professor, I would take points off for not footnoting his sources.