The Columnist

I was waiting for a certain guest post on this category I so affected proclaimed that I hate :). Oh, but it’s plenty to fill the page on this. I could have put this in Life or even in Art, but I’m not digesting the book written so witty by Belén Fernández, The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work. I want to talk about this Friedman character, Pulitzer Prize winner, author, journalist and columnist.

The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work is a take-down of the three-time Pulitzer recipient and foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times. One of the primary establishment cheerleaders for the war on Iraq, Friedman is known for such moves as instructing the entire Iraqi nation to “Suck. On. This” in response to 9/11 despite himself condemning the Bush administration for suggesting a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. He meanwhile urges the U.S. public to believe that the invasion is “the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the U.S. has ever launched” while simultaneously defining himself as “a liberal on every issue other than this war.” – Belén Fernández

Thomas Friedman

I’ve encountered a “ban” trying to download the picture directly from New York Times Examiner‘s media files, so I’ve taken it from the article, which prooved to appeared before in Guernica, where the same pic wasn’t cropped.

“Fernández subjects Friedman to careful scrutiny and assigns him failing grades for logic, consistency, and integrity. After reading Fernández dissect Friedman column by column, the unavoidable question is: How did Friedman ever pass himself off as a journalist? Why isn’t Belén Fernández the New York Times’ lead columnist? The answer is clear. Fernández won’t lie for the establishment.” – Paul Craig Roberts, from the Institute for Political Economy

Maria Belén Fernández

I wanted to write about “the Birthright”, inspired by an article in Al Jazeera, where I was led by a Twitter twit of Mrs. Fernández ( @MariaBelen_Fdez ), when Friedman’s name came up and I remembered his book The World is Flat and how a douche he is. It was a personalized mystifying crap about glorious Infosys and other sponsored filling like that. Recently, this columnist defined a “new political community” called virtual middle class which explains a lot, he said, about the rise of social protest in India, China and Egypt, which is “one of the most exciting things happening on the planet”. He conclude that the massive diffusion of cheap computing power via cellphones and tablets over the last decade has lowered the costs of connectivity and education — so much so that many more people in India, China and Egypt, even though they’re still just earning a few dollars a day, now have access to the kind of technologies and learning previously associated solely with the middle class, hence he called them virtual now.

Meanwhile, yesterday, the former first dog died after 12 years. RIP and no joke, President Bush said it was a polite dog, better groomed than most of Friedman’s “virtual middle class”.

George W. Bush, Barney Bush

It is obvious by hearing this guy that he’s a fake of a human being. Unbelievable.

What’s scary about Thomas Friedman is not his journalism, with its underinflated insights and twisted metaphors. Annoying as his second-rate thinking and third-rate writing may be, he’s not the first – or the worst – hack journalist.

What should unnerve us about Friedman is the acclaim he receives in political and professional circles. – Robert Jensen

Plenty of videos with the awarded “journalist”. Who’s mocking who, after all? He is the one mocking us, or the guys who acclaim him?

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Copyright © 2012 Rodolfo Grimaldi Blog – Thomas Friedman, the Imperial Messenger