Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

That was pretty much my reaction to the column. He lists all the moronic things that the Bush administration does and still finds hope that somehow, some way, they'll suddenly do the right thing.

Of course, I still find Friedman's FROM BEIRUT TO JERUSALEM to be one of the most inciteful books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever written, but he's certainly jumped the shark recently (OK, several years ago).

McSweeny's Internet Tendency recently ran a 'Do It Yourself Thomas Friedman Op-Ed Column' parody recently, which may be of interest to readers of this blog.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2004/4/28ward.html

Call me naive, but I think it's part of Friedman's job to say what he thinks Bush should do - and part of that job to do so without snark, at least most of the time. This is a column that will be read by conservatives coming to realize how badly the admin has mismanaged the war; it might foster a conversation on that side. If nothing else, someone could ask Kerry on the stump what he thinks of the idea, and he could look strong by endorsing it but say qualifying the UN part a bit.

I hope Bush would be able to tell the truth about the deteriorating situation in private, even though he refuses to do so in public.

I dunno. Watching Tom Friedman dangle in the wind while being hung out to dry has been awfully entertaining in a slow-train wreck or a slow hanging kind of way. I figure he's made me read the NYT column page more times than the rest of the columnists combined, because I want to see him desperately grasp at something to hold on to while flip-flopping and scrambling desperately for credibility pissed away on Bush and Co.

Some things aren't possible even if Tom Friedman wants them to be.

> The New York Times really, really,
> really needs to term limit their
> columnists.

Surely you don't mean PK!

Friedman has taken Abe Rosenthal's place as a shill for Israel. He doesn't do it as directly, but his column caters to a big part of the Times' local market. These are people with divided loyalties. They saw (perhaps correctly) Saddam as a serious threat to Israel's national security. It's very hard to go against a policy that takes him out. The other possibility is that Friedman is another example of the Peter Principle. He's over his head (not so say that just most of the other op-ed writers aren't also). Probably a bit of both. They ought to put him back on the beat doing honest work, where he was actually competent.

At least he has dropped the "this is a test for the Iraqis" nonsense.

If I were gonna institute a "term limits for columnists" policy at the NYT, I'd start with Safire. How many times must the readers be subjected to his channeling of the dead Richard Nixon?

What Linkmiester said. Safire is utterly unreadable.

Absolutely. Safire at this point just regurgitates government propaganda, second-hand. This is the equivalent of eating boiled brocolli, cold.
Friedman is just absurd, and has been since this whole Iraq debacle started.

Safire is the Alan Colmes of the Times editorial page.

A mere curiosity at this point. A thing of wonder and amazement.

Friedman seems to taken to Sufi rites: he is spinning like a top and is about to see God, his head is spinning so fast.

Ever notice that nobody's ever seen Walter Mercado and Thomas Friedman at the same place at the same time?

"I envision frappucinos from Riyadh to Rangoon!!!! Número de suerte: 78-10!!!!!"

I dunno at this point, if this really get bad, maybe we might get invaded by the ... French...Like "The Mouse that Roared" in reverse. Et des boulangeries. Et nous pourrons nous passer de cette ordure de papier hygienique qui est le val stgeet journal

"The New York Times really, really, really needs to term limit their columnists."

Exactly: then that arrogant, partisan, empty cynic Krugman would be tossed, and the rest of us would no longer have to listen to his gloating about Americas failures. His columns --and his mind -- are pathetic, predictable, and unoriginal. At least Tom Friedman offers us a human struggle, as he tries to wrap his logic around the very fluid unfolding events in Iraq, events so fluid that no rigid economist can be trusted to tell us when it's over.

My first reaction was that Friedman was simply being ironic -- as in, "here are the prudent things that this administration will NEVER do". He gets it both ways, that way: those who cling to hope that there are grown-ups somewhere near the White House can feel that there's still a chance (after all, W does change policy frequently, he just denies that he is changing and refuses to mention that whatever previous madness wasn't working was, in fact, not working); those who have been critical from the outset can take the column as Friedman's confession that a turn to sensible policy is utterly unlikely.

Overall I despise Safire, but he really is pretty good on some civil liberties issues.

Friedman? Honestly, the guy just isn't very bright.

BTW, for a REALLY funny parody of Friedman read:
http://www.prospect.org/print/V11/13/devil5.html

Gee, Tom, what exactly is wrong with Iraq turning into Afghanistan on steroids? Are you saying things aren't exactly going well in Afghanistan?

I'm astounded Friedman knows that; certainly no one in the Administration would have admitted that.

One of the things I kept hammering on, in the run-up to Iraq, was: why can't we at least wait another year, so we can see how our nation-building experiment is going in Afghanistan, before we take on a second such project?

I'd say it's harder than it looks, but then it looked pretty damned hard to begin with. At least to me. But then, I'm not a neocon.

Um, I actually like all of them -- Krugman, Friedman, and Safire, that is. I find that they often bring up legitimately new points even while banging away at the same old themes.

Dowd and Herbert, however, are beneath even mention...

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