Sunday, January 22, 2006

Humor Spotlight: "Thomas Friedman tries to get his war on wagging"

You may need a laugh right about now if you've gone through the highlights as we're posting them. If so, check out Betty's latest chapter. We'll note, at Betty's request, that she doesn't think it's funny, doesn't think it's worth reading, doesn't . . . We'll note Betty's a great writer but a lousy judge of her own writing. Read, enjoy and laugh.


Thomas Friedman tries to get his war on wagging


Thomas Friedman is frustrated.

It's bad enough that Gail Collins regularly puts him in check mate. He's had a grudge against her and then some, after all, since she pulled his column from Sundays.

But there's so much more going on. He can no longer walk freely on the streets. For over a year, he's spoken of "drawing the sort of mobs that gathered around Marilyn" Monroe. He wishes. That's never been the case as I've seen it. One or two elderly women would usually approach to accost him and attack them with their handbags. As the Marilyn Monroe of the 21st century, his "sassy" highlights not withstanding, Thomas Friedman had been something of a bust. Even his book tour was a disappointment.

However, crowds have begun to form in the last few months. To boo and hiss. That has to do with a general cry from the universe: THOMAS FRIEDMAN, SHUT UP!

The universe speaks and Thomas Friedman doesn't listen.

Having tarnished so much of his already questionable reputation cheerleading the war in Iraq, Thomas Friedman's now signed up to serve his Bully Boy in the pursuit of another war. He's fretting over nukes. So some would be forgiven if they assumed Thomas Friedman had suddenly become interested in exactly what the government of Israel is doing in the Middle East but Thomas Friedman has, to put it very generously, a blind spot when it comes to Israel.

No, he's on yet another bash Muslims kick.

Last Friday, he declared that Iran must be stopped. Their stated intent, minus a CNN mistranslation, is to utilize more nuclear power for their energy industry. But Thomas Friedman knows best and claims to have a pipeline, a Daneil Pipes-line?, into the hearts and minds of a people he's never shown affinity for or understanding of, and he knows, just knows, they're going to "go nuclear" -- meaning bombs.

He is heckled where ever we go now. His cheerleading of yet another war appears to have reminded everyone that Judith Miller didn't "do op-eds" but Thomas Friedman certainly did and he's yet to explain his own questionable "reporting" in the lead up to war with Iraq.

Maybe he should before he cheers this country into another war based solely on his hatred of the Arab world?

"The Axis of Order" saw him cobbling together bits and pieces of everything he could get his grubby little hands on. Remember his insultng remarks to Liang that got us barred from that establishment? His "In your country they would just call this 'food' but here we call it 'Chinese food'" that led her to remark, "In China they would call you 'American bore' but in this country you are just a 'bore'"? (Liang thinks Thomas Friedman ripped off a December 2005 article that appeared in China's Xinhua.)

He works his insult in with a mythical reaction to a speech he wasn't present for. That the speech was given by Robert Zoellick, Depucty Secretary of State, tells you a great deal about where Thomas Friedman gets his "information." Possibly another Enron refugee hiding out in the Bully Boy adminstration is the last thing even Thomas Friedman should cheerlead?

So after his insulting, cheap laughs at another country's culture and language (China), our bwana, immediately begins hectoring China on what they need to do. Because surely every person in China must devotedly follow each and every dribble that flows out of the corners of Thomas Friedman's mouth, right?

He thinks so. Just as he assumes that Russia and India do as well. Possibly the boos and hisses he gets while walking through the streets of NYC are the reason for that? He's taken to explaining to me, while I pretend not to know him to avoid the rotten fruit that some frequently hurl at him, "What has happened is that I have become an international star. No doubt Carlo Ponti will soon want to cast me in an updated version of Two Women."

Personally, I could see him in a remake of Heller in Pink Tights (and he wouldn't even have to forgoe his blonde streaks!) but Thomas Friedman is convinced that "I belong to the world now" while the world seems convinced upon figuring out how to sell him, quickly, to a second hand store.

People ask me what makes Thomas Friedman feel that anyone gives a damn what he thinks now that even American regularly ignore him? (There's a reason Gail Collins pulled him from Sundays, normally thought of as "the day of peace.")

I think it has to do with his inability to face how ineffectual and unwanted he's become. He's overcompensating.

Since I started sneaking the "vitamins" he used to force me to take, sneaking them into his food, getting his war on is about the only "on" he can produce. And since seeing Davy Brooks in the "sock," he's become almost as obsessed as Gail Collins. Long gone are the days when he'd dress up as Judith Miller for sex play because sex play has become a distant memory for Thomas Friedman.

He likes to tell people that he holds the entire world's fate in his hands but from my vantage point, the only thing he's holding in his hand is an embarrassment of manhood. And, as with the world, he can't get a reaction from it.


Even in the best of times, Thomas Friedman was "underdeveloped," these days he's lifeless.

Impotency reaches the op-ed pages of the New York Times finally in all its nonglory and Thomas Friedman overcompensates to avoid being dubbed the only title he's truly earned "the non sex symbol."

Friends ask how can I live with the Friedman and I always explain to them that most days it's easy. While he rants and raves around the apartment in his shorty robe, I focus on issues that really matter.

Or when my friends and I gather to stop the occupation of Iraq, I remind myself that Thomas Friedman is footing the bill, much to his displeasure. He stomps his feet and sulks anytime that Elaine, Jess and I begin singing one of our new favorite songs by Melanie:

For sometimes when I am feeling as big as the land
With the velvet hill in the small of my back
And my hands are playing the sand
And my feet are swimming in all of the waters
All of the rivers are givers to the ocean
According to plan, according to man
Well sometimes when I am feeling so grand
And I become the world
And the world becomes a man
And my song becomes a part of the river
I cry out to keep me just the way I am
According to plan
According to man, according to plan
According to man, according to plan
Oh there's a chance peace will come
In your life, please buy one
Oh there's a chance peace will come
In your life, please buy one

It's all about trade offs and, for now, I call it "marriage."















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