Thomas Friedman’s Wise Words

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has always struck me as a buffoon. I know it’s unkind to comment on his double chin, but, with the Thanksgiving holiday on the horizon, his resemblance to the holiday bird, particularly when he shakes his head for emphasis and the ample neck follows, eager to be in agreement with its headmaster, is hard to ignore.

I saw him on Meet the Press November 16th, appearing as part of a round table with Katty (can you believe that name?) Kay, Tavis Smiley, and some others. I didn’t see the entire segment, but it seemed as though Tom the Friedman took more than his allotted time. Tom the Brokaw was happy to let this media-anointed wise man gobble gobble on as long as possible, so the languid former TV anchorman could pass meet-the-press-muster without undue stress. Thus the Toms did their two-step.

Thomas Friedman had come to mind that same morning, just before I spotted him on TV, as I was reading an article in the New York Times about Danny Boyle, the British director whose new film, “Slumdog Millionaire” was just released. The writer of the piece, Somini Sengupta, tells us that Mumbai, where the film was shot, “is not only crowded, it is also a city where tens of thousands of people live on the streets.” Thus, filming outside of a studio is rare, unsafe, and unpredictable. I thought of Friedman because he has spent so much air time mouthing the grandiloquent cant of free trade. “Tens of thousands on the streets, but the streets are paved and there are port-o-potties where before the resplendent call centers there were 100 times as many and nary a latrine” he might have said.

Within the last couple of years, I’ve heard him talk about how a green China will transform the planet—this while crude coal-fired power plants were sprouting all over the place like green beans in a hot house.

Well, I see he has a new book out about all the problems created by his pet fat flat world.

In the past I viewed a television appearance by him the way Mr. Bennet of Pride and Prejudice looked at fools: a source of amusement while dining. And speaking of dining, he is a perpetual dinner guest. He would have dinner with, say, the Saudi Crown Prince in Riyadh, or journalists in Jakarta and come back with a Friedman exclusive meant to surprise and enlighten us all, in the meantime providing Tom Tom with some hifalutin feed.

No doubt, when I get around to reading his brilliant new book, I will be forced to eat my words. Until then, allow me to share some of his priceless broadcast utterances from that recent Meet the Press:

“It started as a credit crisis, then it morphed into an equity crisis, your stock portfolio went down.  Then it morphed into a consumption crisis; nobody went out and bought.  Then it morphed–now it’s morphing into an unemployment crisis.  Then it’s coming back and intensifying the credit crisis.  That’s the loop we’re in now.  And if we don’t find a way to get America to go back shopping, to, to get the economy re-stimulated again, to get a catalyst there, Barack Obama could have some of his inaugural balls in, in soup kitchens.  I mean, I don’t know where this is going to be a couple of months from now.”

Indeed it is true that a President’s balls might end up in the soup over a collapsing economy, but what a thing to say on national television!

We have to find a way “to get America to go back shopping.” Hmmm. I think maybe people aren’t shopping because they have no money. Mr. Friedman, your stock portfolio may have gone down, but many of the people that comprise the “America’ you are speaking of, have no stock portfolio, or not much of one. And what money they do have may go for hospital visits because they have no health insurance, and maybe not enough pasta or peanut butter for a meal.

And here’s another rhetorical gem on the ubiquitous post-election topic that drove me to turn off my television, the tedious speculation surrounding Hilary Clinton’s nomination to the office of Secretary of State:

“You know, Tom, I think that’s important.  Obviously, having a woman secretary of state would be important.  But I’d step back and say what are the unique conditions right now that actually should affect the actual job qualifications of the next secretary of state?  And for me, I’d want a bankruptcy specialist because I think the next secretary of state’s biggest job is going to be managing weakness, not, not strength.  Managing the weakness of Russia, managing the weakness of China.  I might go back to George Bush Sr., Brent Scowcroft.  ‘Hey, guys, what was it like to manage the collapse of the Soviet Union?’ Because I think the biggest problem in the next couple years, given this financial crisis, is going to be managing the weakness of some of the big players in the world, not their strength.”

Wow! I guess every secretary of state has “managed” the “strength” of the other countries of the world, and now will have to “manage weakness” instead. The weakness of China? The last time I looked the United States economy depended on countries like China, Japan and others for investment to prop up the dollar and our over-leveraged country. I think he has a great idea though, get an accountant, or a lawyer, a bankruptcy specialist to be Secretary of State. Maybe the character from Monty Python, the CPA who was bored and wanted to become a lion tamer?

Of course, since we’re involved in two wars and have lost thousands of soldiers and contractors, and have caused the death and displacement directly and indirectly of millions of Iraqis, maybe we should hire a mortician as Secretary of Defense? What do you think Mr. Friedman?

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