Some of you have mentioned this in the comments, but I just got to reading it yesterday: Matt Taibbi has taken a shovel upside Tom Friedman’s head once again. In fact, one of the absurd sentences he takes issues with involves shovels:
“The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging.When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.”
First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you’re supposed to stop digging when you’re in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense?
But the best part is the title of Tom Friedman’s play:
Even better was this gem from one of Friedman’s latest columns: “The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it’s all too familiar. It’s the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: `Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?'” There are many serious questions one could ask about this passage, but the one that leaped out at me was this: In the “title” of that long-running play, is it supposed to be the same person asking all three of those questions? If so, does that person suffer from multiple personality disorder? Because in the first question, he is a neutral/ignorant observer of the Mideast drama; in the second he sympathizes with the Jews; in the third he’s a radical Muslim.Moreover, after you blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque, is the surrounding hotel still there? Why would anyone build a mosque in a half-blown-up hotel?
As brilliant as Taibbi’s take-down is, there’s one key point he misses here: isn’t “Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?” a strange title for a play? Have you ever heard of a play with such a long title?
What’s most remarkable about Friedman’s fucked up phraseology is that he seems so proud of it. The only thing I can compare this to is the Facts of Life episode where Blair Sue Ann gets high and writes a paper about Moby Dick (video link). Which makes me wonder: is it possible that Tom Friedman is on something?