For a guy who goes around talking about globalization and a flat world, Tom Friedman sure seems surprised to discover that America can’t dictate outcomes the way we used to. He appears to have just learned that Arab regimes want us to blast Iran to smithereens. It looks for all the world like he’s mystified that Saudi Arabia cracks down on radical Islam at home while exporting it like crazy. There was a time when Tom Friedman was more informed about the Middle East than the average U.S. citizen. Somewhere along the way he swallowed a whole bunch of misconceptions and became aggressively misinformed about the Middle East. Maybe it was the trauma of 9/11. I don’t know. But the mustache seems to have lost its understanding.
I think it is because he’s incapable of drawing a conclusion that is more than a neural-klick away from what everyone else in Washington is thinking. So, he lays out a great case for ending the forward basing strategy of the U.S. military but then blames everything on American consumers and a lack of support for green policies in Congress. Yes, we should have saved more, borrowed less, and invested in alternative energy. But the real problem is that people are generally opposed to being told what to do by foreigners. We got away with it for a long time because we had a lot of power and some built up good-will.
When we went over to Iraq and told the Arabs there to suck.on.this at Abu Ghraib, we lost the last vestiges of the moral high ground. That whole mess was basically endorsed by Friedman before we even invaded. It had something to do with popping the terrorism bubble…whatever that meant. Didn’t happen.
Yeah but if we’d saved more and invested heavily in alt energy we might very well be strong enough to boss around the foreigners for years more to come.
There was a time when Tom Friedman was more informed about the Middle East than the average U.S. citizen.
I know I usually like being snarky, but my question isn’t this time. Is the above really true? From the first time I ever heard of him, he hasn’t been informed at all. He’s always spit Versailles CW.
Believe it or not, this is a very good book.
Not everyone is equally impressed with that book.
It’s still a very good book with some real reporting and some real courage involved in gathering the facts. In the 1980’s he was earning a reputation for being good. It all went wrong.
In the 1980’s he had some redeeming qualities, true, but that situation didn’t last long.
Friedman has always been a standard-issue orientalist self-appointed expert on the Middle East. He has gotten steadily worse over time. It was always difficult taking him seriously, and for the past ten-plus years he has been a laughing stock among people with real knowledge and comprehension. Sadly a huge number of otherwise intelligent, thoughtful Americans still take him seriously.
Friedman makes a nice living by coming up with a perspective that is just slightly more clever and thoughtful than the most dipshit mainstream point of view, which allows him to pose as a heavy thinker.
Tom who?
And this matters because?
Here are the key issues:
South Korean Free Trade Agreement — is it DOA in the House?
START treaty — is that what Obama is bargaining tax cuts for the rich in order to get?
If there is a compromise of the extension of unemployment benefits, will it be available longer or shorter that the tax cuts for the rich?
Is estate tax cut extension part of the deal?
Is the fact that Iran can mine and refine its own uranium a game changer in the Middle East? Is it real or just propaganda? What will Israel do?
Did Obama snub Karzai on his trip to Bagram Air Force Base? That will be the catty diplomatic conversation to come out in any future Wikileaks release of any country’s cables.
Would Harry Reid consider holding the Senate in session until January 1 just so Senators’ holidays are ruined as much as those of the unemployed and the about-to-be-unemployed state and local employees?
The House does not vote on treaties. Only the Senate votes on treaties, and they must pass 2/3.
There is likely at least 2/3 of the Senate that would ratify a treaty allowing the US to do onsite inspection of the destruction of Russian nuclear weapons. But the Republicans are playing procedural chicken in order to get their tax cuts for the rich.
You are right. This trade is not available to the House, which might explain its vote on the middle class tax cut. Nothing to risk but the Senate not passing it.
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Perhaps members of U.S. Congress can lobby in China by the party bigwigs to invest in our infrastructure. They seem to have an advantage in trade balance.
I still don’t know how the U.S. taxpayer will pay for the financial bail-out ?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."