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Today New York Times columnist and uber-pundit Thomas Friedman urged Michael Bloomberg to take “one for the country” by running for president this year as an independent (presumably hijacking the Americans Elect ballot lines enabled in no small part by some of Bloomberg’s hedge-fund constituents).
Now I’m not one of those bloggers who thinks of Friedman as The Beast With Seven Heads and Ten Horns; to me he’s mainly the embodiment of yesterday’s zeitgeist, a popularizer of every oversimplistic cliche of the hubristic late 1990s. He’s been very wrong about some things, and remains very right about others (well, at least one thing: the desperate need for non-idiotic policies on energy and the environment). I can understand how people who think the great disaster of our era was the takeover of an essentially anti-militarist and populist Democratic Party by warmongers and plutocrats would hate Friedman with the heat of a thousand suns, which is why his designation as “Wanker of the Decade” by Duncan Black (a.k.a. Atrios) just yesterday was both logical and very popular in the blogopshere.
But although I see Friedman pretty much as a latterday John Naisbitt (author of that trendy middlebrow 1980s compilation of half-truths, Megatrends), his public plea to Bloomberg really does seem designed to confirm Atrios’ accusation that his defining characteristic is world-class narcissism. What seems to be motivating Friedman to call for the upending of a presidential election by a gazillionaire is the inconvenience he suffered during a train trip from New York to Washington (pretty much the boundaries of his mental world, despite all his globetrotting) and his frustration with the petty partisan politicians who are not sufficiently taking Tom Friedman’s advice.
Friedman looks at the two major political parties and does not see traditions, movements, ideologies, constituencies, or communities-of-interest, but instead sees only obstacles to the immediate adoption of his own preferred agenda—described, of course, as the obvious solutions to the country’s most urgent challenges. More specifically, he looks at Barack Obama, who actually supports most of Friedman’s agenda, and sees a well-meaning but feckless man who has been forced by the lilliputians of his party to embrace demagogic trifles like the “Buffet Rule” when he ought to be agitating for “entitlement reform” and “shared sacrifice.”
So like many self-conscious elitists whose idea of leadership is to herd the poor dumb masses along to their appointed destination in the great cattle drive of life, Friedman is a natural Bonapartist, and Bloomberg is the best available Napoleon. Having dismissed Obama and the Democrats as no better than Romney and the Republicans when it comes to the failure to champion Friedman’s specific instructions to America, the columnist does not bother to address the very strong possibility that a Bloomberg candidacy could produce a perverse outcome, such as the election of Mitt Romney by a plurality of voters who embrace a savagely conservative world-view.
If that were to happen, of course, you get the feeling that Friedman would probably attribute it to the parties that failed to melt away or join a Government of National Salvation, or to this generation of Americans who proved themselves unworthy to preserve their country’s role as global hegemon. It would make for many fine columns, and a best-selling book, available in airports everywhere.
All in all, Friedman’s effort to launch a Bloomberg boom isn’t just narcisstic: it shows he’s guilty of a sin that in his own eyes is far, far worse: he’s unserious. Let’s hope Michael Bloomberg has a good laugh and refuses to acccept Friedman’s nomination.
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David in NY on April 18, 2012 11:32 AM:
I had to catch a train in Washington last week. The paved street in the traffic circle around Union Station was in such poor condition that I felt as though I was on a roller coaster. I traveled on the Amtrak Acela, our sorry excuse for a fast train, on which I had so many dropped calls on my cellphone that you’d have thought I was on a remote desert island, not traveling from Washington to New York City. When I got back to Union Station, the escalator in the parking garage was broken. Maybe you’ve gotten used to all this and have stopped noticing. I haven’t. Our country needs a renewal.
This is just for those who didn't click through to Friedman's piece. It is truly all about Tommy. Talk about a narcissist.
StevenDS on April 18, 2012 11:33 AM:
You say he's unserious, I say he's a complete idiot. Let's not argue and agree that we are both right!
jjm on April 18, 2012 11:33 AM:
Friedman is married to an heiress, right? This is just class solidarity speaking. He's actually as dumb as a post.
J on April 18, 2012 11:34 AM:
That's why we need to be governed for our own good by a council of benevolent billionaires, chosen by Friedman in consultation with the spirit of David Broder.
Rich on April 18, 2012 11:35 AM:
he wrote a very good book about the Middle east 20-odd years ago. Since then, he's been the embodiment of coasting, badly.
T-Rex on April 18, 2012 11:42 AM:
The fact remains, however, that our passenger train service is a national disgrace. How bad is it? Well, everyone used to make jokes about the slow, late trains of Italy, but these days, they make us look like the third world in comparison. All of which is NOT to say that a Bloomberg third-party run would improve anything. Didn't Friedman hear about how well N.Y. didn't handle last winter's snowstorm?
Gandalf on April 18, 2012 11:47 AM:
Interesting that Friedman whines about the state of the country and yet fails to see or even have a cursory understanding of what has led us to this state of affairs.
He's almost an exact replica of the tragic figures of the latter stages of the Roman empire.
Patrick Hasburgh on April 18, 2012 11:50 AM:
TF is a total dick -- a rich kid masquerading a serious man... and maybe even a shill for Israel... amazing to me that he was for the Iraq war now, suddenly, willing to blow up Obama chances in November... Obama is Bibi's sworn enemy... I can't help but think that his column today was something more than just the idiotic ravings of a narcissist.
Joe Friday on April 18, 2012 12:10 PM:
Friedman: "Our country needs a renewal."
No, our country needs TAX REVENUE.
Almost ALL of Tommy's complaints stem from the lack of tax revenue caused by the numerous rounds of tax cuts which overwhelmingly benefited the Rich & Corporate enacted by Chimpy Bush and the Republican Congressional Majority.
This also makes his disparagement of the "Buffet Rule" and his calls for "entitlement reform" and "shared sacrifice" the height of stupidity.
Brian B on April 18, 2012 12:25 PM:
This article and all of the comments are brilliant...
thanks to all of you.
Jim on April 18, 2012 12:25 PM:
Now I’m not one of those bloggers who thinks of Friedman as The Beast With Seven Heads and Ten Horns; to me he’s mainly the embodiment of yesterday’s zeitgeist
Friedman isn't so much the beast as he is the Beast's useful idiot, a preening, self-important, unaccountable idiot. AKA a Broder. One of far too many.
The Pale Scot on April 18, 2012 12:36 PM:
Little Tommy wins "Wanker of the Year" Award, and promptly doubtless down.
The Pale Scot on April 18, 2012 12:38 PM:
Erh.. "doubles", bloody auto-correct
DisgustedWithItAll on April 18, 2012 12:39 PM:
All one has to do to see the intensity with which Friedman takes himself seriously is catch him on Charlie Rose. The unctuousness will turn your stomach. Somebody, somehow please be certain to take that man's pen away.
FC on April 18, 2012 12:52 PM:
Brilliant writing, Ed. He of the acid pen, the great Voltaire, would be proud. Two from him:
"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it."
"Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create."
Texas Aggie on April 18, 2012 2:04 PM:
Would Bloomberg take away Obama's votes or Rmoney's? It seems to me that Bloomberg would appeal to those who are like Rmoney rather than Obama. After all, he was the one who sent the Storm Troopers in the middle of the night to attack the OWS camp, and who beat up a bunch of reporters who wanted to report on it. The only thing I can think of that the right wing wouldn't approve of is his antigun nut stand, but that is a big failing, but not among the wealthy class.
bigtuna on April 18, 2012 2:24 PM:
Later post alludes to a fallacy in Friedman's thinking; ok, mine too when Obama ran. The cold, harse reality is that unless a party has 60+ senate seats, and Republicans have the majority of the house, most attempts at any rational discourse, policy making, etc., is lost. Bloomberg would last 10 minutes before he would see Boner, Cantor, McConnell, etc., as the feckless fools they are, and on the 11th minute his disdain would be obvious, so that by the 12th min., the honeymoon would be over.
Friedman continues the tradition of the simplistic thinking of the press and the editorial writers. The political process is now so gummed, that hardly anything important, will happen.
Move to Canada, or Norway, Tom.
Jimo on April 18, 2012 3:44 PM:
I continue to be amazed at how Friedman manages (month after month after year) to continue with the pretense that there's any substantive difference between his own far-seeing prescriptions for the USA and the policy platform of the Democratic Party.
As others have mocked him before:
Friedman: "If only we had a President who favors policies A, B, and C!!"
Pres. Obama: "I favor policies A, B, and C and have called on Congress to enact enabling legislation."
Friedman: "Like I said, if only we had a President who favors policies A, B, and C."
veblen's dog on April 18, 2012 4:21 PM:
What do you suppose would happen if, instead of "this happened to me" or " I met a cabbie who said".... if instead of writing tepid sociology by anecdote, Friedman were told by his editor that his next column must actually be based on data. Y'know, facts and statistics 'n stuff.
Do you think his head would explode? Would his Moustache of Serious Insight fall off?
Or would he merely steeple his fingers, look vague, and reply "This afternoon a hot dog vendor outside my condo....."
Doug on April 18, 2012 8:24 PM:
Thomas Friedman? Meh.
His moustache is smarter than he is. It certainly has more depth...
brian t. raven on May 01, 2012 11:35 AM:
Surely your best column yet. This deserves a much wider audience. How about the NYTimes?
Thank-you Mr. Kilgore
Brian T. Raven
PS It's about time people notice that Emperor Friedman has no clothes.
mikeyrstxx on May 01, 2012 11:43 AM:
"Moustache of Serious Insight"
Awesome! May I use that? again and again?