At least he's stunningly consistent: "Tom Friedman Has No Idea What He’s Talking About."

I first became aware of Thomas L. Friedman when my pal Barrie and I read From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989), which described Friedman's feelings about Israel in the context of his work as a young reporter in the Middle East during the 1980s.

The book seemed solid to me, particularly the chapter called "Hama Rules," which bluntly detailed the horrifying violence directed against internal dissent by the elder Assad in Syria circa 1982, thus providing a preview of son Bashar's predictable instincts during the country's recent civil war.

However this passage at Wikipedia suggests that I didn't necessarily have a wider frame of reference at the time.

It received the 1989 National Book Award for Nonfiction and also the Cornelius Ryan Award. In a book review for The Village Voice, Edward Said criticized what he saw as a naive, arrogant, and orientalist account of the Israel–Palestine conflict.

There's little sense in belaboring the point, which comes down to this: As my frame of reference widened, Friedman's credibility shrank in proportion. His article last week, as dissected here by Elie Mystal, was like an itemized list of centrist wrong-thinking in response to Trumpism.

I haven't read a column by Friedman for a very long time, and propose to double down on what is proving to be a correct decision on my part.

Tom Friedman Has No Idea What He’s Talking About, by Elie Mystal (The Nation)

Every pundit urging moderation was wrong in 2016, and they’re wrong now.

There is one, and I’ll argue only one, thing that Thomas Friedman gets right in his latest New York Times column “‘Trump’s Going to Get Re-Elected, Isn’t He?’”—and that one thing is the fact that people are asking that question a lot. The fear is palpable. The fear is real that somehow the Democratic Party will fail to the meet the unique danger posed by the incumbent president.

Fear can be a powerful motivator, but fear also causes people to make bad arguments and promote silly things. Thomas Friedman is afraid, and it shows. His prescription for the Democrats to confront the danger of Donald Trump is well-meaning inanity, the kind you find in a squirrel who hears a hawk and runs around in a circle because it can’t remember where the tree is.

The particular hawk that seems to have set Friedman off this time was the first round of Democratic debates. Friedman watched them and did not like what he saw. He was “shocked.” No, really, he used the word “shocked” five times to describe the ideas he heard from Democrats, which is an interesting word choice considering Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Maybe he expected Democrats to offer the same kind of fiscally conservative, socially moderate, wildly unpopular policies that served Jeb! so very well against Trump?

From Friedman:

Dear Democrats: This is not complicated! Just nominate a decent, sane person, one committed to reunifying the country and creating more good jobs, a person who can gain the support of the independents, moderate Republicans and suburban women who abandoned Donald Trump in the midterms and thus swung the House of Representatives to the Democrats and could do the same for the presidency. And that candidate can win!

But please, spare me the revolution! It can wait.

This poor man has it so twisted around that he’s decided it’s the Democrats who are threatening to nominate somebody indecent and insane.

Democracy is being crushed by transnational corporations, which is why I say "Death to Chains."

As an appetizer, Matt Taibbi savages Thomas Friedman's new book.

Late Is Enough: On Thomas Friedman's New Book (Taibbi; Rolling Stone)

In his new book, 'Thank You for Being Late,' Thomas Friedman makes a short story long

"The folksiness will irk some critics ... But criticizing Friedman for humanizing and boiling down big topics is like complaining that Mick Jagger used sex to sell songs: It is what he does well." –John Micklethwait, review of Thank You for Being Late, in The New York Times

With apologies to Mr. Micklethwait, the hands that typed these lines implying Thomas Friedman is a Mick Jagger of letters should be chopped off and mailed to the singer's doorstep in penance. Mick Jagger could excite the world in one note, while Thomas Friedman needs 461 pages to say, "Shit happens." Joan of Arc and Charles Manson had more in common ...

On to the main course, referencing Friedman but actually making sense.

No country with a McDonald’s can remain a democracy, by George Monbiot (The Guardian)

... Under the onslaught of the placeless, transnational capital that McDonald’s exemplifies, democracy as a living system withers and dies. The old forms and forums still exist – parliaments and congresses remain standing – but the power they once contained seeps away, re-emerging where we can no longer reach it.

The political power that should belong to us has flitted into confidential meetings with the lobbyists and donors who establish the limits of debate and action. It has slipped into the diktats of the IMF and the European Central Bank, which respond not to the people but to the financial sector. It has been transported, under armed guard, into the icy fastness of Davos ... above all, the power that should belong to the people is being crushed by international treaty.

Monbiot's conclusion:

One of the answers to Trump, Putin, Orbán, Erdoğan, Salvini, Duterte, Le Pen, Farage and the politics they represent is to rescue democracy from transnational corporations. It is to defend the crucial political unit that is under assault by banks, monopolies and chainstores: community. It is to recognise that there is no greater hazard to peace between nations than a corporate model that crushes democratic choice.

Are you a “pro-conception-to-birth, indifferent-to-life conservative?”

Back in the 1980's, I enjoyed Friedman's Middle East analyses. If you want to know precisely why Bashar al-Assad is such an asshole, Friedman's "From Beirut to Jerusalem" is a good place to start.

As an evolving advocate of localism, I've found much of Friedman's Pied Piper globalism hard to stomach. But in this op-ed, he nails the obvious hypocrisy of “pro-conception-to-birth, indifferent-to-life" conservatism.

Why I Am Pro-Life, by Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times)

... If you can name an issue, you can own the issue. And we must stop letting Republicans name themselves “pro-life” and Democrats as “pro-choice.” It is a huge distortion.

In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children. You can call yourself a “pro-conception-to-birth, indifferent-to-life conservative.” I will never refer to someone who pickets Planned Parenthood but lobbies against common-sense gun laws as “pro-life.”

NYT readings from Rich, Friedman.

Required Sunday reading from the New York Times, and not only for Li'l Stevie and the Drifters before they embark on their Oblivious Rocks! concert tour of the 3rd council district.

First, Frank Rich:

Rich: Weddings, Divorce and ‘Glee’

... Domestic partnerships and equal economic benefits aren’t antidotes, (David) Boies explains, because as long as gay Americans are denied the same right to marry as everyone else, they are branded as sub-citizens, less equal and less deserving than everyone else. That government-sanctioned stigma inevitably leaves them vulnerable to other slights and discrimination, both subtle and explicit. The damage is particularly acute for children, who must not only wonder why their parents are regarded as defective by the law but must also bear this scarlet letter of inferiority when among their peers.

Next, Thomas L. Friedman on the "best reaction I’ve seen to the BP oil spill," in the form of a letter written by his friend Mark Mykleby to a newspaper in South Carolina.

Friedman: This Time Is Different

"I’d like to join in on the blame game that has come to define our national approach to the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

"This isn’t BP’s or Transocean’s fault. It’s not the government’s fault. It’s my fault. I’m the one to blame and I’m sorry. It’s my fault because I haven’t digested the world’s in-your-face hints that maybe I ought to think about the future and change the unsustainable way I live my life. If the geopolitical, economic, and technological shifts of the 1990s didn’t do it; if the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 didn’t do it; if the current economic crisis didn’t do it; perhaps this oil spill will be the catalyst for me, as a citizen, to wean myself off of my petroleum-based lifestyle.

"‘Citizen’ is the key word. It’s what we do as individuals that count. For those on the left, government regulation will not solve this problem. Government’s role should be to create an environment of opportunity that taps into the innovation and entrepreneurialism that define us as Americans. For those on the right, if you want less government and taxes, then decide what you’ll give up and what you’ll contribute.

"Here’s the bottom line: If we want to end our oil addiction, we, as citizens, need to pony up: bike to work, plant a garden, do something. So again, the oil spill is my fault. I’m sorry. I haven’t done my part. Now I have to convince my wife to give up her S.U.V."

UK election: Lib Dem coalition with Labour?

As previewed here in early March, the British have had their election, and "nobody won." Now what?

The scenario outlined in the Guardian's editorial below is less implausible than it might seem at first glance. A coalition of all non-Tory parties, including Scots and Welsh nationalists and a stray Green, would total roughly the 326 seats needed to keep the still reviled Conservatives safely away from #10 Downing St. However, there is some question whether the non-right should even bother, given the approaching painful phenomenon that Thomas Friedman refers to as "root canal politics" in today's New York Times.

To seize this historic moment, the Lib Dems must turn to Labour ... To ensure the country's support, Gordon Brown must announce his plans to step down, a Guardian editorial.

Nobody won. That is the basic definition of a hung parliament. The newly elected members might not see it that way. The leaders of the three main parties might couch the results of last week's election in historical and statistical terms that make them feel better. But the fact remains: nobody won.

The Conservatives have the most plausible claim to some kind of victory. They took the highest national share of the vote and gained 97 seats. But Mr Cameron was battling to restore majority Conservative rule. He campaigned vigorously against a hung parliament, all but demanding unchecked power. He was rebuffed: 10.7 million people voted for Tory government; more than 15 million people did not.

But the non-Tory vote was divided, largely between Labour and Liberal Democrats. Despite many local skirmishes, there is a strain of cousinly feeling in both parties that sees the Tories as a common enemy. From that impulse now springs the idea that Labour and the Lib Dems could join forces to prevent Mr Cameron from taking power.

A thought for Saturday morning coffee.

Reporter, columnist and author Thomas L. Friedman relates one of my favorite Marx Brothers cinematic moments in this excerpt from “The Lexus and the Olive Tree.”

In the Marx Brothers’ classic movie Duck Soup, there is a scene in which Chico and Harpo are talking to the evil, calculating European statesman Trentino, Groucho’s political rival, who has hired Chico and Harpo as spies. When Chico and Harpo come to Trentino’s office to report on the progress of their spying, his secretary walks in with a telegram. Harpo grabs it out of her hands, examines it closely and then rips it to shreds, tosses it on the floor and shakes his head. Stunned and surprised, Trentino turns to Chico with a quizzical look, as if to ask: “Why did he do that?”

And Chico answers: “He gets mad because he can’t read.”

In all likelihood, neither Friedman nor the Marx Brothers ever set foot in New Albany.

So: How can their characterization of life here be so chillingly accurate?

Friedman's Iran: "No illusions about the bullets and barrels they are up against."

Tom Friedman gets it right in today's New York Times. Just demographics, baby ... but there's more chance of it turning out like Tiananmen than the Velvet Revolution. Like Friedman, I'm pulling for the Iranian kids. They'll have to show the world yet again the courage it takes to achieve basic human freedom from religion.

Bullets and Barrels, by Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times).

... But now, having voted with their ballots, Iranians who want a change will have to vote again with their bodies. A regime like Iran’s can only be brought down or changed if enough Iranians vote as they did in 1979 — in the street. That is what the regime fears most, because then it either has to shoot its own people or cede power. That is why it was no accident that the “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Khamenei, warned protestors in his Friday speech that “street challenge is not acceptable.” That’s a man who knows how he got his job.