I now understand the disease that afflicts Tom Friedman and Maureen

[CanIgonow]

Dowd.Even though nominally they are the Op-Ed columnists of the NY Times and their audience is supposedly people like us,their true audiences are something quite different.In the case of Maureen or Mo as she likes to style herself,the crowd she wants to be seen and admired in are the types who frequent the Hamptons and name dropping of the big wheels in New York is de riguer.This is why her pieces are infested with terms like Rummy,Condi,etc. conveying a first name familiarity with the powers that be. Imagine the effect it has on her target audience of wannabes from the inkstained crowd of wretches and you get the picture.This is also why the deaths of thousands in Iraq does not have the same resonance for Mo as missing a weekend of shopping at Prada.When all things including war and death and shopping for the right bag are the same how can anyone be perturbed by something as trivial as Bush's record or seriously examining Gore's statements instead of trashing the man?

Friedman is the case of a man who succumbed to the press releases extolling his own magnificence.When he was the Middle East correspondent of the NYT his daily contacts with ordinary Arabs and Israelis gave his reports the authenticity for which he was praised.After he got himself comfortably set up in the middle of downtown New York and after he received his Pulitzer prize, he started fancying himself as the unofficial Ambassador to the world from the exalted NY Times.He started solving the problems of the world from his desk and from the backseats of taxicabs around the world and in the process any authenticity he had gained.This is why all his columns started to look alike with the scenery changed from Bombay to Cairo to London to Davos.When finally he supported the Iraq war with not a shred of anything to back up the war, his moral and intellectual bankruptcy had reached full bloom.In a way I was encouraged when he took an extended vacation from his labors because it indicated to me that he knew in his heart that he was finished as a person with something to say.We will see what he does have to say when he returns to his column.

In both cases, these people reveal how a lack of perspective on the relative importance of events and a lack of humility about oneself can cloud the judgments of people. Mo may be a more advanced case of such unnecessary hubris;I believe Friedman may be retrievable.

[trumad]

1. Read Somerby at the Howler

dailyhowler.com

[CanIgonow]

6. Thank you.I will.

[Crunchy Frog]

2. I believe that Tom Friedman's

most important role is the marketing on neocon ideology to people who see themselves as liberals. That's why he tries to present himself as a liberal while parroting all the talking points of the neocons.

I heard him on an NPR call in show about a year ago and he came off as one of the most despicable human beings that I have ever heard speak.

His main justification for the Iraq invasion was that "we did it because we wanted to and we could." In short, he embraces the morality of naked power and "might makes right".

One of the callers asked him about N. Korean nukes and their potential for dropping them on Japan. He basically said that Japan is thousands of miles away from where he lives, so if they get nuked, it's not his problem and he wouldn't give a damn.

He makes me :puke: :puke: :puke: .

I don't at all place Maureen Dowd in the same category.

[Jacobin]

3. Very well put

Mo is disgusting.

No word has yet been invented to describe the depths to which Tom FriedBrain has descended.

[alcuno]

4. You must have read the interview w/ Dowd in "W Magazine."

I about fell over when I saw it.

[CanIgonow]

5. No.What did she have to say other than her usual prattling about

her shopping?

[mountebank]

7. Great post. Dowd is worse, IMO. See her on MTP?

While Friedman has been peddling pure bullshit for quite some time, there is something truly repugnant about the flip, cynical hate-everything-except-shopping approach of Maureen Dowd. They had her on Meet the Press the other week, up against William Safire. As Safire was not up on the latest hot new 5th Avenue Fall look, they could barely come together for a coherent debate. At least Friedman has actually met living, breathing average citizens. Dowd is the type who in the event of a major catastrophe, of the type that might limit her access to fabulously-patterned handbags, would turn fascist in a heartbeat.

[kodi]

8. they are 2 amongst many media pundits who think their shit don't stink

they have become, in roger waters expression, comfortably numb. and for journalists that is about as useful as a milk cow gone dry.