Tom Friedman

In an odd column in Wednesday's New York Times, Tom Friedman praises Chuck Hagel. Friedman doesn't actually praise anything Hagel has ever said or done. He never quotes Hagel nor cites any of Hagel's votes. Indeed, Friedman acknowledges Hagel is "out of the mainstream" on national security issues ranging from Iran to Hamas to the Pentagon budget.

Tom Friedman is a genius. It’s very, very difficult to write a frequent column that expresses deeply conventional wisdom in a fresh, hey-kids-I-just-thought-of-this voice.  He is the id of the Washington Establishment.

Rick Santelli took on Tom Friedman this morning in a heated exchange on CNBC, with both ending the discussion by calling the other "idiotic:"

TWS: Wisconsin Republicans beat back Big Labor in recall elections.

New York Times: A terrifying window into Tom Friedman's imagination

Politico: "Harry Reid super committee picks in place"

Looking at Washington these days, one suspects that this is the way things will be for a long time to come. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day (and all that), the massive tangle of dependencies, entitlements, political payoffs, and perpetual pork barrel schemes that is our national government cannot be either taken down or rebuilt along rational lines – if, indeed, it is possible at all – in much less than the 50 years it took to create it.

"Want to guess which potential Republican candidate looks ready to pass the pH test on [cap and trade]? Mitch Daniels. In early 2009, when the issue was ill-defined, he was already arguing against it. That's a nice arrow in the quiver the next time he's asked about the 'social truce.'"

With the news of Osama bin Laden’s death sating much of the world’s appetite for reports from the Middle East, the Syrian regime has used what is essentially a media blackout to move against the opposition. As the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Hayat reports:

Let me guess -- Nancy Pelosi was first in line.

Most transparent administration ever: "White House visitor logs riddled with holes."

So liberals are really sticking with that "we don't have to do anything but let taxes increase massively" deficit message? Good luck with that.

NPR is the "Worst Of White Condescension"

Obamacare's attacks on HSAs have doctors writing way too many prescriptions.

All those annoying ads urging PBS and NPR viewers to lobby congress may be illegal.

First we have Thomas Friedman singing the praises of post-Mao communist China in the New York Times:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

The latest attempt at self-parody from New York Times columnist Tom Friedman:

President Obama’s winning passage of national health care is both exhilarating and sobering. Covering so many uninsured Americans is a historic achievement. But the president had to postpone trips, buy off companies and cut every conceivable side deal to just barely make it happen, without a single Republican vote. If the Democrats now lose seats in the midterm elections, we’re headed for even worse gridlock, even though we still have so much more nation-building for America to do — from education to energy to environment to innovation to tax policy. That is why I want my own Tea Party. I want a Tea Party of the radical center.

Whoa. Radical center? That Friedman is really thinking outside the box.

A lot of people have been looking to find someone to blame for President Obama's failures: the Constitutional order, the right-wing noise machine, the dull, dim-witted American people. Funnily enough, one person rarely seems to get fingered.