Look, it's almost pointless to write about how genuinely dim Tom Friedman is. It's akin to lamenting that a barn animal can't do simple arithmetic. But I have to flag this column, because it captures so many shibboleths inherent in his pernicious mix of stupidity and elitism:
To lead now is to trim, to fire or to downsize services, programs or personnel. We've gone from the age of government handouts to the age of citizen givebacks...
Mr. Obama won the election because he was able to "rent" a significant number of independent voters - including Republican business types who had never voted for a Democrat in their lives - because they knew in their guts that the country was on the wrong track...
They thought that Mr. Obama, despite his liberal credentials, had the unique skills, temperament, voice and values to pull the country together for this new Apollo program - not to take us to the moon, but into the 21st century. (emphasis added)
First of all, the age of "government handouts" is over? Really? What about the bank bailouts via TARP and the Federal Reserve?
Well, to Friedman those either don't count, or are just downright awesome. This is a guy who married into super-wealth and who hangs out with and quotes almost exclusively people from his own economic station. He either doesn't even realize that giving away tens of trillions of dollars to Wall Street is considered a "handout" by most Americans, or he believes the term "handouts" only applies to money given to working-class people (unemployment benefits, welfare, etc.), but not to millionaire bankers.
Then Friedman goes on to effectively ascribe Obama's victory to "Republican business types" - ya know, the corporate country clubbers Friedman hangs out with all day. Based on exit polls and electoral data, this theory has zero basis in actual reality - but it justifies Friedman (and the rest of the media) to continue writing columns that insist Obama's first legislative loyalties must be not to his base or his expressly progressive campaign promises, but to said "Republican business types."
Finally, my favorite inanity of all: Friedman's shock that a Democrat might possess "skills, temperament, voice and values" to push successful reinvestment programs "despite liberal credentials." This just straight-up ignores even the most stripped down high school history lessons.
Yes, even a 7th grader knows that FDR and LBJ were the presidents who successfully enacted stuff like the New Deal and Great Society - not "despite their liberal credentials" but because of them. Indeed, Friedman labels a potential new domestic investment initiative a "new Apollo program," says Obama should push it "despite his liberal credentials" - without noting that it was John F. Kennedy's liberal credentials that was key to the original Apollo program Friedman pays homage to.
As I said, it's mostly pointless to critique Friedman's basic lack of cognition - but every now and then, it's important to unpack the larger propaganda he so clumsily presents as intelligence, if only to highlight that propaganda's stunning persistence.
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