Thomas Friedman

A friend sent me a link to a column by Norman Solomon, bashing Thomas Friedman, which was published on September 6 by CommonDreams.org . I read the column, part of which I agreed with and part of which I thought was silly, and then I started reading the comments. Oh my God! And this was on CommonDreams no less. They should rename the site "Common Nightmares". Here is the comment I posted. (Seven weeks after the article appeared, so probably no one will see it.)

What really disturbs me about many comments, here and elsewhere, are their profanity, vulgarity, and "in your face" nastiness. What is this supposed to accomplish? Whatever happened to civil discourse? Who are people that make such comments hoping to convince? Answer: no one. They just want to get things off their chest. I think such rancor and shrillness debases the seriousness of the issues being discussed. It reduces the debate to locker room level.

As for Thomas Friedman, I have always thought of him as an intellectual lightweight with a "gee whiz" adolescent view of things. Sometimes he gets things right, but often not. He has undue influence, which is sad, since for sure he is no Walter Lippmann!
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Why do people want to blame Friedman for everything? He is just one voice. For sure he was "rolled" on the Iraq War, but so were a lot of other people. There are a number of columnists at the New York Times who aren't so easily "rolled", such as Rich, Krugman, Kristof and Dowd. The trouble with Friedman, as with many other journalists, as that he assumes he is entitled to a certain amount of gravitas, when in fact he is not. The most famous example is when Walter Cronkite decided that winning the war in Vietnam was hopeless after the "Tet Offensive" in early 1968, when in fact that offensive was a big military defeat for the Viet Cong (or whatever their proper name was.)

Don't get me wrong, I was a rabid opponent of that war, but I think journalists should know their limitations and clearly separate fact from opinion. Recently, we have the example of Lou Dobbs, who has morphed into an anti-immigration demagogue.

My favorite example of a distinguished journalist was Walter Lippmann. He opposed the Vietnam War, and after Idaho Senator Frank Church became an opponent early on, LBJ was supposed to have told Church that the next time he wanted a bridge built in Idaho, he should go see Walter Lippmann.

You are wrong, Mr. Robinson

In his column in today's Washington Post, " Republican Hot Flashes", Eugene Robinson states the following:

"The latest [example of Republican 'male menopause'] was the Senate vote Wednesday in which Republicans, supported by a handful of red-state Democrats, narrowly scuttled the Dream Act, a bill that would have provided a path to citizenship for some young undocumented immigrants -- but only those who did everything this country once found worthy and admirable in pursuit of the American dream.

Under the proposal, men and women who fulfilled several conditions -- they had to be under 30, had to have been brought into the country illegally before they were 16, had to have been in the United States for at least five years and had to be graduates of U.S. high schools -- would have been given conditional legal status. If they went on to complete two years of college or two years of military service, they would have been eligible for permanent residency.

Let's see. Here was a way to encourage a bunch of kids to go to college rather than melt into the shadows as off-the-books day laborers -- or maybe even gang members. And here was a way to boost enlistment in our overtaxed armed forces. Aren't education and global competitiveness supposed to be vital issues? Aren't we fighting open-ended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The vote against the Dream Act was so irrational, so counterproductive, that it seemed the product of some sort of hormonal imbalance."

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Here is the comment I posted:

"I believe a legitimate argument against the Dream Act is that it would encourage illegal immigration for people wanting to ensure a better future for their children. Most legal immigrants have that desire as well. I don't think we should validate illegal immigration in such a way."

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Part of living the American Dream is that people aren't supposed to get the chance to realize it by cutting in front of the line of those waiting to get into the country. I don't believe that there should be laws validating illegal immigration. One could argue for exceptions in cases that are in the national interest: critical skills or willingness to serve in the armed forces, for example. I believe the former is already the case for legal immigration. As for the latter, to be fair we would have to set up military recruiting centers in all US embassies and consulates. We would also have to amend the Statue of Liberty's famous call:


"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free or to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States ..."


I had an earlier post on this topic at the time the Senate was debating the Immigration bill.

Does the New York Times know a Caucasian when it sees one?

In an article in today's New York Times, "A Son of Immigrants Rises in a Southern State", the author states the following: "[Bobby Jindal] is a highly unusual politician, having become the nation’s first Indian-American governor in a Southern state where race is inseparable from politics. "

Not to make too fine a point of it, but if we're talking about race, then he isn't so unusual, since Indian-Americans, as opposed to American Indians, are, after all, Caucasian. As in "Indo-European". A more accurate term for the author to have used is "color"

George Will loses it!

In his column in today's Washington Post, "The Unforgotten Man", George Will states:

"Politics often operates on the Humpty Dumpty Rule (in 'Through the Looking Glass,' he says, 'When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less'). But the people currently preening about their compassion should have some for the English language.

Clinton's idea for helping Americans save for retirement is this: .... . She proposes to pay for this by taxing people who will be stoical about this -- dead people -- by freezing the estate tax exemption at its 2009 level. "

I posted the following comment to his column:

"Come on George. You know better! The Estate Tax is not a tax on dead people. It is a tax on their estate. A very different entity. It was instituted 100 years ago to prevent the concentration of wealth in a few people's hands. A legitimate use of the tax code. You should include yourself in the list of people using the 'Humpty Dumpty Rule.' Shame on you."

It has always been one purpose of the tax code to redistribute wealth. One major complaint about the Estate Tax was that, in order to pay it, the heirs often had to give up the "family farm". This problem can be handled by increasing exemptions, or whatever. In today's day and age, a bigger problem seems to be that no one wants to inherit the "family farm". George W. Bush doesn't mind using the tax code to redistribute wealth, except in the wrong direction.