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!
************(end of my comment)

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."

*****************

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."

*******************

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.

Krugman Plays the Race Card

In an otherwise excellent column($) in today's New York Times. "Snow Job in the Desert", Paul Krugman says the following:

In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressing the United Nations Security Council, claimed to have proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He did not, in fact, present any actual evidence, just pictures of buildings with big arrows pointing at them saying things like “Chemical Munitions Bunker.” But many people in the political and media establishments swooned: they admired Mr. Powell, and because he said it, they believed it.
Mr. Powell’s masters got the war they wanted, and it soon became apparent that none of his assertions had been true.
********
I believe that the use of the term "masters" in this context is racist (and, believe me, I don't throw the term "racist" around lightly). The pairing, after all, is master-slave. To me, it is just a polite way of saying what Harry Belafonte said a number of years ago when he called Colin Powell a "house nigger". Belafonte later apologized, and Powell said something to the effect that " I told Harry I hoped we could get past using terms like that." I hope Krugman can get past it too.

By the way, there was some evidence. I believe there was a phone intercept talking about "cleaning things up before the inspectors come." It turned out they were talking about old stuff that might still have traces of whatever. Don't forget, Saddam did at one time have WMD's, some of them supplied by us, in which Donald Rumsfeld played a leading role.

All this vilification of Colin Powell makes me understand all the more why he didn't want to run for President. Barack Obama is feeling the heat now, and I think he should get out of the Presidential race, as I fear for his safety. I also feel there was some racism and sexism, not to mention intellectual snobbery, in the criticisms of Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, but I will save this for a future post.

Krugman vs the Republicans

Below is a comment I emailed to Paul Krugman about his column($) in today's New York Times, "Seeking Willie Horton". I have sent several before, but he only posts the ones he responds to, and mine have never seen the light of day.

I enjoy your columns, but today I thought you were shooting from the hip a bit. Is it the Republican base, or the leaders, who you were aiming at? Certainly your comments don't apply to George W. Bush. Dreadful as he is, one has to admit he is genuinely inclusive when it comes to his administration (to a fault when it comes to Gonzales). But then I've thought for a long time that Bush isn't really a Republican, although not for that reason. As for Dukakis, he ran a dreadful campaign, was programmed at all times, and he never fought back, when he was asked what he would do if his wife was raped and murdered, or about the Willie Horton ads. He could have pointed out that most governors-including Reagan-give furloughs to prisoners. As for Reagan, I don't think he we was a racist and certainly not homophobic, at least on a personal level. True, he did pander, but I think one of the big reasons for all the "Reagan Democrats" was because of all the "political correctness" in the Democratic Party. And I'm afraid that this will be coming back full blast if Hillary is elected.
************
To elaborate on my last sentence: One big reason I won't vote for Hillary is that she has an agenda, spoken or not, to take us back to the 1970's, with the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and all the rest. Look what happened when Bill got elected: gays in the military, there has to be a female Attorney General, not to mention the health care fiasco and her channeling of Eleanor Roosevelt. Hillary, I knew Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt was a friend of mine. (well not really) And believe me, you're no Eleanor Roosevelt.

I lived through the Seventies, and I don't want to have to relive them. "Political correctness" still thrives in academe, which is one reason I'm glad to be out of there. The main organization for academic mathematicians, the American Mathematical Society (AMS), is in step with the colleges and universities on this issue. In the 1970's they decided not to hold their annual meeting in a state that had not ratified the ERA -there went Chicago- and in 1995 they moved the annual meeting out of Denver because Colorado had passed some anti-gay rights legislation, not withstanding the fact that Denver had passed some pro-gay rights legislation.

Lest you think I was an old fuddy-duddy back then, I should mention that in the late Sixties and early Seventies I was the parliamentarian for the "Mathematicians Action Group", which did plenty of rabble rousing at AMS annual and summer meetings.

If I were more mischievous, I would send a letter to the AMS Notices pointing out the following: There is a classical theorem in Number Theory called the "Chinese Remainder Theorem." I always thought it was titled that way because they didn't know which Chinese mathematician had proved it. It turns out that the name of the person is known, but hey (and here I jest) he's Chinese, and who could pronounce the name anyway? The height of political incorrectness! I suspect that such a letter would really get the "politically correct" crowd going.

A bit too Rich for my thoughts

In his (understandably) emotional charge to trash everything about the Bush Administration, I believe that Frank Rich has at times taken leave of his thinking senses. He has always been a bit "over the top", so this is to be expected, I guess. Nevertheless, this bears commenting upon, since there are certainly other villains of this piece besides Bush, Cheney & Co. In his column($) in today's New York Times about the commuting of Scooter Libby's sentence, he says
"But if those die-hards [in Bush's base] haven’t deserted him by now, why would Mr. Libby’s incarceration be the final straw? They certainly weren’t whipped into a frenzy by coverage on Fox News, which tended to minimize the leak case as a non-event. " But his last sentence runs counter to his argument. If they viewed the leak as a non-event, then they would be more likely to be whipped into a frenzy by Libby's incarceration.

In last week's column, "When the Vice President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal" , he says that "hiding in plain sight was the little-noted content of the Bush executive order that Mr. Cheney is accused of violating. On close examination, this obscure 2003 document, thrust into the light only because the vice president so blatantly defied it, turns out to be yet another piece of self-incriminating evidence illuminating the White House's guilt in ginning up its false case for war. " But why was this executive order "hiding in plain sight"? It wasn't kept a secret, it's just that few people took note of it or realized its importance.

Later on in his column Rich says "Because of the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation, we would learn three years later about the offensive conducted by Mr. Libby on behalf of Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush. That revelation prompted the vice president to acknowledge his enhanced powers in an unguarded moment in a February 2006 interview with Brit Hume of Fox News. Asked by Mr. Hume with some incredulity if "a vice president has the authority to declassify information," Mr. Cheney replied, "There is an executive order to that effect." He was referring to the order of March 2003."
Now, how does Rich know that this was an "unguarded moment"? My feeling all along has been that the Bush Administration was not really hiding its ginning up of the war. It's just that few people were paying attention to the signs of this, and those who did were not listened to. I'll never forget Paul Wolfowitz being quoted as saying "We've decided to go with WMD's as the best reason," or something to that effect. This was the subject of the infamous "Downing Street Memo," but it wasn't a surprise to me when that memo surfaced.

The sad truth is that Bush, Cheney & Co. have had plenty of enablers -in Congress, the media, and the mostly apathetic American public when it comes to anything other than entertainment, celebrities and sports. I applaud the efforts of Rich and others to get people better focused on the important issues as we deal with the fallout from the "Mushroom Cloud" of the Bush-Cheney Calamity.