It’s not every day that I think Ramesh Ponnuru gets it right. Yes, Friedman’s “radical center” piece is an easy target, but this is a smart point nevertheless:
Friedman justifies the “radical” tag by emphasizing the distance between his agenda and “politics as usual.” His real analytical problem, though, comes with the word “center.” The fundamental reason that politicians haven’t cut entitlements and raised middle-class taxes isn’t the power of hard-core liberals and conservatives. It’s that the public—including most people who could reasonably be described as moderates—doesn’t want them to do these things.
He writes, “My definition of broken is simple. It is a system in which Republicans will be voted out for doing the right thing (raising taxes when needed) and Democrats will be voted out for doing the right thing (cutting services when needed). When your political system punishes lawmakers for the doing the right things, it is broken.” The problem isn’t “the system,” except insofar as it is responsive to the voters. That’s his problem. As his paeans to China’s government suggest.
There’s something creepy and profoundly anti-democratic about Friedman’s obsession with how “well-run” China is. But I expect him and other pundits to talk more and more about how much better it would be if we just let elites run everything without input from the plebes.
What’s amusing is that the two greatest debacles of the last twenty years were engineered by an elite “radical center”. Tea baggers didn’t dream up the Iraq War or deregulate credit default swaps.
And, for all Friedman’s talk about rewarding parties for good behavior, he’s never been willing to praise Democrats for their relatively responsible governing practices.
Derelict
Friedman, as usual, thrives on the voices inside his head.
To be sure, however, the elites DO run everything. Friedman is either profoundly ignorant (an assumption supported nicely by all of his writings and his public statements) or working hard as a shill for those elites.
Taxes on the middle class and the lower classes have been raised dramatically over the last 30 years. The payroll tax has gone up, as have regressive taxes that hit the middle class and poor the hardest (gas taxes, cigarette taxes, etc.). And the hidden tax increases in the form of “user fees” for things that used to be free.
And service have been slashed at all local levels of government even as unfunded mandates have thrived.
But the voices in Friedman’s head tell him none of these things have happened.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Friedman Fatuous Fruitloop
dr. bloor
When you get pwnd by the likes of Ramesh, it’s time to retreat to your 900 room bungalow and let the shopping malls pay the bills.
Mike Kay
Friedenstein still exists?
New tags: 8-track tape, Fax machine, B&W Tee Vee
Robin G.
That was from Ramesh? Wow. Stopped clocks.
You’re wrong about the teabaggers and Iraq, though. These were the guys demanding brown heads — any brown heads — for 9/11. They were happy enablers, and they fostered the “dissenters hate America” feel. It wasn’t Bush administration lackeys who were leaving threatening notes on my windshield because of my bumperstickers. It was the same people who are spitting on black congressmen.
CalD
And that in a nut shell is why we need two functional parties who are capable of working together. It’s also why states where one party controls the legislature and the other, the governor’s mansion tend to weather tough economic times better than states where one party dominates both the legislative and executive branches — I’ve seen two different studies done during two different recessions that concluded the same thing.
Each party is politically capable of doing things the other can’t. All of those things together are required to run a government effectively.
DougJ
@Robin G.:
They wanted heads, I’ll admit that. But Weekly Standard, the liberal New Republic, Fred Hiatt, and the Times led the charge into Iraq far more than tea baggers did.
schrodinger's cat
Why doesn’t MoW retire to a tropical island and take Brooks and Baby Brooks with him.
GregB
Suck on this, with a side of duck sauce.
Arclite
I think China “works” right now for the same reason that Russia (the Soviet Union) worked after the revolution and Germany worked in the 1930s: when a country is so far down the development scale, a totalitarian regime (whether dictatorial or oligarchical) can be a good way (but not the only way) to make and enforce strong decisions to raise a country up quickly into a mechanized economy. However, as the these examples all show there are great sacrifices to be made by the populace in terms of freedoms and having a say in the details of the direction. That Freidman continues (as usual) to only place importance on the economic aspects is telling of his opinion of these freedoms.
ds
If you want to see how well Friedman’s vision of government run by empowered middle of the road citizenry works in practice, look no further than California.
The “radical center” used the proposition system to pass itself endless tax cuts and spending increases.
Friedman just has a Tim Russert complex and truly believes he’s a typical working class Joe and thus all the undecided voters out there must think just like him.
Cat Lady
@schrodinger’s cat:
They can haz MoDo too plz? Maybe she’d finally get laid.
Oh, eeewwww.
Mike Kay
Awww, Frienenstein – those were the heady days, when I made a killin buying stock in magnetic car flags and magnetic yellow ribbons. We were so patriotic back then with our Hummers. Sniffle.
Violet
Is Friedman’s moustache like Samson’s hair in that if it’s shaved off, his hold over the NYT editorial page will end? If so, can someone please grab a safety razor and get at it?
Mike Kay
@Cat Lady: I don’t think MoDo can screw will all the botox in her system.
Arclite
@ DougJ
Really? The teabaggers are majority wingers, aren’t they? You’re telling me all these brown-haters pushed for the Iraq war less than the liberal hawks? Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean?
Mike Kay
O/T
Watching ABC News and the Pope just compared the scrutiny he’s receiving in the priest-rape scandals to the crucifixion of Jesus.
I’m not kidding.
Arclite
@ CalD
I’d love to read those studies if you’ve got the links.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@DougJ: I think when Iraq started, some of the tea baggers were still pondering where Clinton was burying all his Drug Kingpin rivals, while others were sleuthing on Hillary being a ChiCom double agent.
With the remainder jabbering to themselves why nothing happened on January 1, 2000.
It wasn’t till the Kenyan darky got sworn in they all pulled together.
Arclite
Wow.
Time.To.Resign.
Mike Kay
@Violet: ya want to know what’s really funny — Friedenstein is only 5’3″ tall. No Joke. He’s a tiny little dwarf, for a male. I don’t think he’s ever been on a rollercoster ride.
Arclite
@ Cat Lady
MoDo and BoBo would make a nice couple. And if they fell so much in love as to stop writing columns and appearing on TV, well the world would be a better place.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: It wasn’t till the Kenyan darky got sworn in they all pulled together.
You’re right, but I’d add that they still wouldn’t have pulled together without some professional herders and media backing.
The Grand Panjandrum
OT: Terrorist fist bump alert!
mai naem
OMG I am so f#$ing sick of these pundits. They don’t know sheet. F#$ing Friedman is worth a gazillion dollars even with his wifey’s family fortune being decimated. Friedman is never going to have worry about his living expenses, his healthcare, his kids’ college educations, his retirement expenses. Same goes for David Gregory, Bobo, Mike Murphy, both Dowds, Matalin, Kristol, Krauthammer, Carville and on and on. It’s just one big f#$%ing game to them. They make no real connection between policy and it’s real world effects.
mcc
The “Unity 08” stuff if you think about it maybe should have been a bit of a clue that the Friedman/Broder/etc elite core really are something like a third party, a third party with what seems like zero elected officials on their slate. They occasionally align with one party or other on a particular issue but in general they have this set of assumptions and priorities that really don’t have anything to do with either party, isn’t really “in between” the positions of either party (as the term “the center” would seem to imply) and doesn’t seem to consistently have much to do with objective reality either.
TenguPhule
Friedman still being allowed to write shit in the NYT is proof there is no Just and Loving God.
His contributions to the diseducation of American adults deserves at least one of his hands be removed.
Ash
China is well run in the same way that North Korea is well run. Except the Chinese have more food and money.
DougJ
@Arclite:
As I remember it, yes.
DougJ
@mcc:
That’s a very good description.
Brien Jackson
I don’t disagree that Friedman’s obsession with China is annoying/unseemly, but if you accept Ponnuru’s construction as a critique, I don’t see how you can’t side with Friedman, more or less. After all, Ponnuru is definitely right that voters want more spending with fewer taxes, but obviously they can’t have that, at least not for long. Responsible governance, democratic or otherwise, involves being honest about the fact that you have to pay for what you get, and get what you pay for.
J. Michael Neal
China isn’t even vaguely well run. The level of corruption is un-fucking-believable. If you think that the accounting rules here are too lax, don’t look over there. Investing in China is on an At Your Own Risk basis. Minority shareholders are completely at the mercy of management.
Arclite
@ Ash,
Well, the Chinese actually allow for free-market capitalism to manage the economy, instead of central planning. That, and they engage with the outside world. I’m not really sure that the two are comparable at this point. They’re not really driven by the same level of fear as DPRK as well.
jrg
Bill Clinton got a blowjob from a fat girl. A fat girl, dawg. By the way, they have Starbucks in China now. That’s central to Friedman’s point.
Ash
@Arclite: I was talking more about the populous than the actual politics/economies.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Arclite: I am sure if you had asked the tea baggers individually at the time Iraq started, they would have said hell yea, why not – but these people to me were and are far more concerned with the boogymen they imagine is after them on American soil. Or, their hate is focused internally to the US and especially it’s government.
And all the bullshit that they are just ordinary folks suddenly now concerned with too much government power is just that, bullshit. They have been conspiracy nuts likely their entire lives, suspecting libtard commies planning to drink their precious bodily fluids when they let their guard down. And the rest are just pure racists, probly not even that political. Add them together, and you get fat racist paranoid white people willing to get off their coaches and bombard our senses with epic and sometimes scary stupid.
raholco
China’s economic growth has indeed been spectacular-but at a very high cost to their society.
A command economy can do wonderous things-both good and bad. You have entire skyscrapers that are empty, buildings that collapse at their foundations, children running around toxic cesspools of discarded equipment being stripped, corruption that makes ours look like childs play, and a government that can be ruthlessly efficient at executions (their death vans) while looking the other way as they are paid off by business.
TenguPhule
On the other hand, when their crooks get too embarrassing or steal too much, they shoot the bastards and bill the family for the bullets.
some other guy
But the people organizing the teabaggers did. And, at the time, the teabaggers supported them every warmongering and deregulating step of the way.
tc125231
Friedman is a pompous dork.
Nonetheless, he is right. China has been much better led than the US for a considerable length of time.
Will it continue to be so? Who knows?
Nontheless, American Democracy is performing very poorly.
Chad N Freude
@Mike Kay: The buck stops … somewhere else.
I’m in charge of this organization, but I’m not responsible for anything bad that happens, although of course I am completely responsible for anything good that happens.
Signed –
GW Bush
The heads of the financial TBTFs
Pope Benedict
ArnoldXVIJohn Boehner
Mitch McConnell
Sarah Palin
Roger Ailes
. . . The list goes on
Ash Can
@tc125231: American democracy is doing just fine, as long as enough people get enough factual information going into elections — which, two years ago, they did. And remember, even though China is light years ahead of where it was under Mao, that government is still censoring the Internet.
Chad N Freude
@Ash Can:
I would like to live in your universe. Whatever factual information may exist, most people in mine get their “information” from Fox News, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and any other cable channel that isn’t Comedy Central.
schrodinger's cat
Friedman only knows what the Chinese Government wants him to know, so why should we take him at face value when he says that it is well run.
Based on his other columns and TV appearances I find it hard to take him seriously on any topic.
Ash Can
@Chad N Freude: We all lived in “my universe” 2 years ago, remember?
Viva BrisVegas
@J. Michael Neal:
For a true capitalist that would surely be a feature, not a bug.
Our masters and betters have been watching China very closely for some time now. If authoritarian capitalism can be shown to be profitable in the long term, then look out liberal democracy, your days are numbered.
Anoniminous
@Arclite:
They really got to cut down on the StupidPills® at the Vatican.
Chad N Freude
@Ash Can: @Ash Can: I don’t want to get into a snarkfest about this, but two years ago people (and you know who you are) were not motivated by information. Justice, ethics, history, understanding of what was actually happening and the likely consequences, but information? I think not.
Liberty60
@mai naem:
THIS.
I used to flip past the Beltway Boys, with Fred barnes and Morton Kondrake, and listen to them spew endless cliche-ridden Conventional Wisdom. Never thought much about it until one day I read somewhere that they were described as ” a liberal and a conservative”
I almost spit my coffeee out, wondering WTF? how did they decide who got to play Lib and Con? Did they flip a coin on alternate days or something?
They were more like those old couples on When Harry Met Sally, who would finish each other’s sentences, reciting the same stories over and over for the 800th time, both sharing a single worldview and opinion.
For all these pundits, its the same- they all live in the same Manhattan/ Georgetown apartments, send their kids to the same schools, and hang out in the same clubs as each other, and as the government officials they ostensibly report on.
There is no liberal media, or conservative media, there is only the self-perpetuating courtier clique media, dedicated to preserving and enhancing their seat at the table of power by any means necessary.
Zach
Sometimes I wonder whether Larry Kudlow’s poorly concealed hard on that arises anytime the wonders of the Chinese economy comes up will hurt his political aspirations. Somehow I doubt it. How hard would it be to make a political ad piecing together all of Kudlow’s praise for China’s free market economy, though?
Ken J.
Friedman wrote:
“When your political system punishes lawmakers for the doing the right things, it is broken.”
Yah, and when your pundit system punishes the ones who were right and rewards the ones who were wrong, your pundit system is broken too.
The fact that there was not a significant housecleaning in the punditocracy after Iraq means that America is doomed, I fear. We are locked into a cycle — in punditry, in finance, in other places — of rewarding disaster and shooting the truthful messengers.
And yes, Tommy, I’m talking about YOU.
mclaren
Friedman lives in an 11,000 square foot mansion waited on hand and foot by servants. He’s a crypto-fascist who doesn’t give a damn whether America is ruled by totalitarians, as long as the trains run on time.
Like all totalitarian bully-worshippers, Friedman adores any foreign dictatorship that puts on a good show for foreigners. The equivalent of Friedman in the 1930s was the typical Stalin-worshipping members of the American communist party.
Friedman never sees the Chinese thought reform prisons where Chinese citizens are tortured and have their organs harvested for the “crime” of writing protest songs criticizing the state, just as the Stalin-worshipers of the 1930s never saw the Russian poets who died in the gulags for the “crime” of writing a satirical poem.
Just another bully-worshiping crypto-fascist. Nothing to see here, move along.
The Raven
“Mussolini made the trains run on time.”
Croak!
Dollared
How does a guy like Friedman survive on zero feedback whatsoever?
Isn’t there someone, anyone in his world that tells him what an idiot he is?
Someone? Anyone? Krugman?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Well, you just described about three fourths of current punditry, and half of blogaramadamadingdong(tm).
Tagging boilerplate WATB material with things like “we’re doomed” is about as anti-democratic as one can get, eh? It explicitly implies that self government has failed. A declaration I, personally, am not ready to moo.
Comrade Kevin
@Dollared: He gets tons of feedback, from cabbies in Bangalore, coolies in China, and slaves in Abu Dhabi.
mslarry
aw man… not to hijack the thread, but shoot i’m here in los angeles and would give ANYTHING for some good chinese w/a side of duck sauce. ah… memories
bob h
There’s something creepy and profoundly anti-democratic about Friedman’s obsession with how “well-run” China is.
I am pretty sure that there is no Social Security or national healthcare system in China, so it is not that well run.
nicteis
There’s never been anything to praise.
It’s simple, but it’s always worth spelling it out again.
(1) This always has been, and always will be, a center-right country.
(2) The Democrats are the left, the Republicans are the right.
(3) Therefore, the true center always lies more than halfway to the right of the Democrats.
(4) It is always the responsibility of the Democrats to move to the right, so as to achieve better balance around the true center. (It is always the responsibility of the Republicans to move further right, for the same reason. Not budging counts as bipartisanship.)
(5) Once they have moved to the right, Dems deserve no credit. Because the new true center now lies further right. If anything, they should be ashamed of themselves, really, that once again they have failed to reach it.
The logic is unassailable. It’s just like Achilles and the tortoise. Except that in this race, the tortoise appears to move faster.