Tom Friedman on the Leakage of American Power

Most of the time I link to Tom Friedman in order to point out his pomposity or inconsistency.  But, as they say, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then, and Friedman's column in this morning's NYT is a good one.  His citation of our increasing lack of "leverage" is spot on, and tying it to our dependence on Middle East oil (among other things) correctly identifies the problem. 

The irony of Arab potentates egging us on to take out Iranian leadership, while they pay for the next generation of suicide bombers, is rich.  The faster we extricate ourselves from the economic indenture we serve to the House of Saud, the better. 

Tom Friedman On Entrepreneurship

Tom Friedman does a pretty good job here talking about the conditions for entrepreneurship to thrive in the US. In fact, I don't find fault with much he says here. But I do find myself wondering how he explains his slobbering fascination with the centrally managed autocracy in China. Are we supposed to believe that atmosphere is more conducive to entrepreneurship?

Tom Friedman Annoys on Energy

Tom Friedman of the NYT has become a one-man garden industry of talking points for the Democratic Party. In today's bit of doggerel, he recounts an interview he had with SC Senator Lindsey Graham, who along with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman is attempting to put together a "bi-partisan" energy bill, presumably along lines of thinking with which Friedman is broadly in agreement.

This bit of ridiculosity from the first paragraph: "What is interesting about Graham is that he has been willing — courageously in my view — to depart from the prevailing G.O.P. consensus that the only energy policy we need is “drill, baby, drill.”


This is what passes for insight from a Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist in America's "Newspaper of Record?" Does Friedman really believe that Republican energy policy is nothing more than "drill, baby, drill"? Didn't the President just recently make hay in his State of the Union Speech by offering support for New Nuclear Power as an olive branch to Republicans? Because Republicans largely are in opposition to the President's Cap and Trade initiative (which offered plenty of goodies for friends and industries favored by the administration and other Dems), does Friedman really believe that Republicans simply want to burn oil until its gone and then figure out the problem?

Friedman has been a leading thinker on matters dealing with the Middle East and with Islam--with good reason. That he has moved into adjacent markets to become seen as some kind of green-energy sage just doesn't hold water. He's a mouthpiece for the secular religion of Greenism and a reliable amplifier for whatever ideas rattle around Manhattan, Georgetown and Davos salons.

From Davos, Common Sense

The annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (otherwise known as the Tom Friedman fan club) is reacting to the growing populism of Western leaders as they come out swinging against big business in general and big banking in particular. President Obama's populism is apparently matched by Sarkozy in France--both of whom have begun to raise the concern of world business leaders who feel such rhetoric to be antithetical to economic recovery.