That Used to Be Dross

I don't read Thomas Friedman. Oh, I experimented in my blogging youth. But I lost a lot of brain cells doing it despite my efforts not to inhale. Luckily it is only a five dollar fine in Ann Arbor, so I don't have a criminal record. If you are a regular reader, you know that while I won't say you can't drown in a pool of Friedman's wisdom, you would have to be drunk and face down to do so.

But sometimes people I like enough to read have read Friedman, and they comment on him. But they get paid to read Friedman's dross, and my computer screen can stand only so many spewings of beverages as I read him. Perhaps if ink was cheaper I'd have a way out of that dilemma. Sure, sometimes what Friedman writes is so stupid it is amusing, but the next morning I wonder what was so funny. And then I remember that Friedman is but a regurgitator of conventional center-left wisdom. And then I get all sad, and stuff.

Anyway, Jonah comments on Friedman's pool of wisdom of saying that we can no longer do great (as in big) things because of gridlock. The recent record of great things (big although many are also stupid) our governing class has done would seem to nullify that assessment. If we aren't doing great things, just what in the heck are we spending so much money on under this president?

To be fair, Friedman might just be trying to sell copies of his latest book--which all seem to be a reordering of paragraphs from his last book run through a thesaurus program with a catch term added ("vetocracy" in this article's case, although I cannot say if that is his latest book's term to be used at east coast cocktail parties)--That Used to Be Dross.

I always get queasy when I get too close to Friedman's writing. Alas, that used to be lunch.