Friedman Is Back as Midwife to Help Trump Rebirth Middle East
Thomas Friedman offers his latest version of how much better everyone could be doing if they paid attention to the self-appointed secretary of humanity.
Dean Baker on China Trade Policy
How different is Thomas Friedman’s insistence that China “let in more Taylor Swifts” from US media coverage of China and trade policy generally?
Friedman at 50 Friedman Units: What Did We Do to Deserve This?
On the occasion of the silver anniversary of Thomas Friedman’s foreign affairs column in the New York Times, let’s recall some of his greatest hits from over the years,
Thomas Friedman’s Crazy Poor Economics
Aside from the racism of the column’s headline—note that it’s different to say that some individuals in an ethnic group are “crazy rich” than it is to say that a group as a whole is poor because they’re crazy—it’s just empirically wrong to suggest that Middle Eastern countries are poorer as a whole than Asian countries.
Soaring Cost of Clues Leaves Thomas Friedman Apparently Unable to Buy One
In a period of record-low productivity growth, Thomas Friedman tells us the robots are taking all the jobs. Hey, no one ever said you had to have a clue to write for the New York Times.
Trying to Sell TPP by Repackaging It as an Anti-China Pact
Since economics won’t sell the TPP, the alternative is to make it a geopolitical pact, with the main target being China. The main problem with seeing the TPP as a pact designed as a weapon against China, though, is that it doesn’t seem to have been designed that way.
Tom Friedman Mourns a Trade Deal He Doesn’t Understand
Thomas Friedman, who is legendary for his boldly stated wrong assertions, is making absurd claims about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the great loss the US suffers from its going down.
Soundbites June 2017
Violence Makes Editors Happy… For Friedman, Geopolitics Tops Genocide… Impossible to Verify—or to Resist Reprinting… Think Tank Licks the Hand That Feeds… At Reuters, ‘Not Refuting’ Is Believing… Nice Work if You Can Get It… Journalism Disrupts ‘Governmental Processes’… Trump Becomes President – Because Bombing
Thomas Friedman’s Perverse Love Affair With ISIS
For the second time in as many years, Thomas Friedman has explicitly advocated that the United States use the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as a proxy force against Iran, Russia, Syria and Hezbollah.
The Lazy Pundit’s Guide to Which Candidate’s Lies You Shouldn’t Care About
“Hillary’s fibs or lack of candor are all about bad judgments she made on issues that will not impact the future of either my family or my country,” says Thomas Friedman, whereas “Trump and Bernie Sanders have been getting away with some full Burger King Double Whoppers that will come crashing down on the whole country if either gets the chance to do what he says.”
Thomas Friedman’s Bargain-Basement Punditry
Thomas Friedman makes up absurd positions, attributes them to the people he doesn’t like, and uses this as an excuse to throw them out of the discussion. He wants to leave it to the real experts.
Friedman Goes After Trump: Hey, Massive Bombing Was MY Idea!
Where could Donald Trump have gotten the idea that his “infantile threats of massive bombing” would be taken seriously as foreign policy proposals? Maybe he reads Thomas Friedman’s column.
Friedman Turns Baltimore Uprising Into Commercial for Wife’s Charter School
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman reached a new low, exploiting the Baltimore Uprising to run a rather shameless commercial for his wife’s charter school organization.
What Does Tom Friedman Know About TPP?
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman once declared that he doesn’t really bother understanding international trade agreements. But that doesn’t stop him from writing about them.
Iran’s Suspicious Smile
Tom Friedman of the New York Times opened up his November 13 column with this: It goes without saying that the only near-term deal with Iran worth partially lifting sanctions for would be a deal that freezes all the key components of Iran’s nuclear weapons development program It goes without saying that this is deeply […]
What Do You Call Edward Snowden?
CBS’s Scott Pelley suggests that Edward Snowden admitted to being a “spy” for Russia. But he’s not the only one using odd language to describe the NSA whistleblower.
Tom Friedman, Churchill and Immigrants
If Tom Friedman wants to slam Republicans’ anti-immigrant policies, he probably shouldn’t be summoning the ghost of Winston Churchill.
Did NYT Tarnish ‘Journalistic Reputation’ of WikiLeaks?
The New York Times reports that Wikileaks’ “journalistic reputation was…undercut by two prominent articles published by the New York Times.” But if anyone’s journalistic reputation was hurt by those articles, it was the Times’.
What Tea Party Did Tom Friedman Go To?
Friedman’s garbled recollection of a major U.S. political movement is a reminder that someone who doesn’t understand the politics of his own country is probably not going to give you a lot of help understanding the politics of other people’s countries.
Media Millionaires
many high-profile members of the media elite live a rather charmed life. The journalism business looks to be in a disastrous state—but the view from the top is just fine.
