I collect southern colorful southern sayings like, "he's so stupid, he couldn't find his ass with a search warrant." Still one of my favorites. One of the more recent additions to my collection is, "...even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while."
I was reminded of that one after reading Matt Tiabbi's devastating mockery of Tom Friedman of the New York Times. I enjoyed a couple of Friedman's earlier books--"From Beirut to Jerusalem" and "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", in which he respectively makes some good first hand observations about the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the post-cold war global economy. Yet I was flummoxed even then, by Friedman's non sequiturs. The man just didn't seem capable of arriving at a logical conclusion from his own data.
I haven't bought a book of his since then, which might have something to do with the fact that he's republished "The Lexus and Olive tree" three times under three different titles. Ain't it strange that liberal Democrats are so often such greedy bastards? Ain't it stranger that they still manage to be so sanctimonious in the process?
Where does a man who needs his own offshore drilling platform just to keep the east wing of his house heated get the balls to write a book chiding America for driving energy inefficient automobiles? Where does a guy whose family bulldozed 2.1 million square feet of pristine Hawaiian wilderness to put a Gap, an Old Navy, a Sears, an Abercrombie and even a **** Foot Locker in paradise get off preaching to the rest of us about the need for a “Green Revolution”? Well, he’ll explain it all to you in 438 crisply written pages for just $27.95, $30.95 if you have the misfortune to be Canadian.
And you thought it was just Al Gore...
I'm still struggling with the idea that I shouldn't attribute to conspiracy what is easily explained by stupidity, but it does appear exceedingly strange to me that apparently intelligent Democrats can so often spout incomprehensible nonsense with a straight face, and then be lauded for their idiocy by other liberal Democrats (see Jimmy Carter)
In any event, the inanities need to be trivialized and ridiculed just so that right-thinking people don't get intimidated by the orgasmic plaudits of the state media for same. Tiabbi drives the point home with a series of graphs accurately reflecting Friedman's own empirical methodology.
In The World is Flat, the key action scene of the book comes when Friedman experiences his pseudo-epiphany about the Flat world while talking with himself in front of InfoSys CEO Nandan Nilekani. In Hot, Flat and Crowded, the money shot comes when Friedman starts doodling on a napkin over lunch with Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Policy magazine. The pre-lunching Friedman starts drawing, and the wisdom just comes pouring out:I laid out my napkin and drew a graph showing how there seemed to be a rough correlation between the price of oil, between 1975 and 2005, and the pace of freedom in oil-producing states during those same years.
Friedman then draws his napkin-graph, and much to the pundit’s surprise, it turns out that there is almost an exact correlation between high oil prices and “unfreedom”! The graph contains two lines, one showing a rising and then descending slope of “freedom,” and one showing a descending and then rising course of oil prices.
Friedman plots exactly four points on the graph over the course of those 30 years. In 1989, as oil prices are falling, Friedman writes, “Berlin Wall Torn Down.” In 1993, again as oil prices are low, he writes, “Nigeria Privatizes First Oil Field.” 1997, oil prices still low, “Iran Calls for Dialogue of Civilizations.” Then, finally, 2005, a year of high oil prices: “Iran calls for Israel’s destruction.”Take a look for yourself: I looked at this and thought: “Gosh, what a neat trick!” Then I sat down and drew up my own graph, called SIZE OF VALERIE BERTINELLI’S ASS, 1985-2008, vs. HAP- PINESS. It turns out that there is an almost exact correlation! Note the four points on the graph:
...and no, I don't think this is fair to Valerie Bertinelli, even if its probably true...
