A pretty awesome put-down of Friedman’s relentless pimping for Americans Elect by Harold Meyerson:
If Mitt Romney manages to squeak through with the GOP nomination, there won’t be much political space that Americans Elect could occupy: Wall Street will already have a candidate of its own. But if Santorum is the GOP nominee, Americans Elect could offer an alternative for moderate Republicans and sundry independents.
This is why it took Americans Elect’s champions about a nanosecond after Santorum’s surge began to start promoting a candidate. The group’s foremost advocate, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, penned a column on Sunday introducing his readers to David Walker, the U.S. comptroller general from 1998 to 2008, and for two years thereafter the head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, an organization established by the billionaire co-founder of the Blackstone Group to preach the gospel of cutting Social Security, Medicare and other government spending.
In his column, Friedman acknowledged that he wasn’t sure that a Walker presidential candidacy would positively affect the outcome of the election, but he stated that he’d “pay good money” to see such a candidate raising his points in the presidential debates. (Those who remember Friedman’s columns on the eve of the Iraq War, expressing doubts about the Bush administration’s ability to wage that war but supporting it nonetheless because it might just make things better, may see a pattern here.)
Egg Berry
Friedman makes good money polishing that third party turd.
Frank
I bet the next six months will be critical…
c u n d gulag
Shorter Meyerson:
“Suck on it, Tom!”
It’s amazing how far T. Friedman will go to search for the beast known as “A Centrist Candidate,” but never find Obama, who’s been trying to be as “centrist” as possible.
But the right has dragged that centrist border line to Crazy Town, USA, so they paint anything he says or tries to do as some sort of screed and takeover by a Nigra Marx/Hitler/Mao.
Mark S.
1. The former head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation? What is this, the David Broder Memorial Candidacy? Good luck breaking 1% with that candidate.
2. Tommy actually thinks these clowns are going to be invited to the debates?
mistermix
I loved this part:
In other words, old, white, male and impotent.
Walker
Tommy thinks that a candidate that has worked for two years to cut Social Security and Medicare is going to get any votes? That is rubber room delusional right there.
Ash Can
Shorter Friedman et al.: “We want a Barack Obama who isn’t a Democrat or black.”
dmsilev
Too funny:
Ron Paul! Ron Paul! Ron Paul!
So, if Americans Select has to pull the “never mind what our Internet voters say, our billionaire funders get a veto” lever, doesn’t that kind of expose them as a fraud? Except to Tommy Friedman, of course, because he’s good at that sort of willful blindness.
beltane
The only good thing that can be said about Tom Friedman is that he no longer enjoys the same amount of influence he did ten years ago. At least among the totebaggers in my circle of acquaintance, Tom Friedman is regarded as something of a clown. His “suck on it” comment combined with the Friedman unit nonsense really did lasting damage to his reputation over the long term. Unlike David Brooks, who is far more skilled in the arts of deception, Tom Friedman really doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.
liberal
FTFY
arguingwithsignposts
@dmsilev: IIRC, Stephen Colbert was 5th or 6th in that poll.
MomSense
@mistermix
Eliot Cutler is persona non grata up heah in Maine after delivering governor LePage to us.
And now Citizens Elect, started by a hedge fund manager, is supposed to be just the thing to restore our politics. Because you know those poor hedge fund managers are under represented in Washington.
The Ancient Randonneur
Give Tommy a break, he just wants a a larger cross-section of the population driving cabs so he doesn’t run out of achingly awful column material. It’s hard out there for a guy married to an heiress.
jibeaux
Does it make me irrevocably liberal that if my last name were Thomason, I would not name my son Thomas, and if my last name were Johnson, I would not name my son John, etc.?
amk
@beltane: yup, teh mush of
understandingfucked-up-pundtwitry should have been kicked to the curbs by the grey lady ten friedman units ago.xian
@jibeaux: you are making Pete Peterson and Erick Erickson sad
amk
The baby that hates mitt.
Look at his fake ‘smile’… mitt’s, not the baby’s.
Elizabelle
@Ash Can:
More honest than anything Friedman has written. He’s clinical.
Did anyone catch Paul Krugman’s takedown of the Mustache’s column (among other pundits)?
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/hooverbruning-2012
daveNYC
@jibeaux: If your last name were Johnson, you’d be obligated to name him Hugh.
Frankensteinbeck
@liberal:
You do know that FinReg put some serious screws to Wall Street and they hate Obama with a festering passion, right? For a man owned by Wall Street, they sure as Hell don’t seem to be getting their money’s worth.
@mistermix:
Well, but they really want that safety net cutting. Americans Elect is another bizarre attempt to rebrand the Republican Party, this time led by the ‘fiscal conservatives’ rather than the conspiracy theorist hatemongers. I’m all for a third party formed of people who would only have voted Republican anyway.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
Shorter Friedman: Blow everything up, what’s the worst that could happen?
Amazing what electing a black president has done to the sanity of this nation. And by “amazing”, I mean “dismaying as hell”.
amk
@Frankensteinbeck: @liberal: freshly minted firebagger troll ?
Donut
The only take away I really get from the Mayerson piece is that Bernie Fucking Sanders has almost half the number of supporters on Americans Elect as Ron Paul. One of those guys has been out pimping for prez for years and that’s the best he can do? Slightly better than double an honest to garsh Soshulist from the Librul Elite?!
Ha ha. Can’t wait for the huge sadz and poutrage that will overwhelm Tommy and his rich friends when Obama is reelected.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
@amk: No, it’s been here for a while. Don’t think it’s a firebagger but rather a straight-up ratfucker.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity: Yup.
I saw yesterday Buddy Roemer wants to make a run at the Americans Elect nomination. I haven’t followed him closely, but isn’t he more or less a hard-core, old school Blue Dog, too Jesusy and a little to populist for the Wall Streeters? I don’t think he’d want to do much for Medicare, much less Medicaid, but I don’t think Peterson et al would think much of his tax and campaign finance reforms.
Howlin Wolfe
@jibeaux: Peter Peterson = Dick Dickson
handsmile
I’m very pleased that DJG-E linked to Harold Meyerson, a far too little appreciated columnist who regrettably still labors for Kaplan Test Prep Daily.
His columns frequently address labor/workplace issues or how specific policies will affect the daily lives of middle and low-income Americans. To be sure, a singular perspective on the Op-Ed pages of Pravda on the Potomac (or “even the liberal” NYTimes for that matter.)
Meyerson, the peerless investigative reporting of Dana Priest, and the policy analysis of Ezra Klein are the sole remaining journalists whose work does not disgrace that once reputable news organization.
Also, as for the possible decline in reputation of the Mustache of Understanding due to “Suck on this!” and “Friedman Units,” let’s remember who’s responsible for coining and advancing those tropes: Duncan Black/Atrios. A national living treasure of Left Blogistan.
MomSense
@Frankensteinbeck (great name!!)
Unfortunately Citizens Elect doesn’t only market themselves to people who would vote Republican anyway.
I was doing GOTV on election day and I work in our downtown so I saw/heard/interacted quite frequently with the signature gatherers and the signees for Citizens Elect.
They appealed to people of all parties here (it’s a small town and if you are politically involved you know with which party people are affiliated) and really marketed themselves as being more responsive to voters and as a way to break through the two-party/both sides are bad dysfunction.
I am not confident that they would only pull voters away from Republican candidates.
Xboxershorts
Friedman’s Comments are closed. Bummer.
David Walker, as Comptroller General, operated the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Part of treasury, the OCC is charged with chartering, regulating, and supervising all national banks.
It was this office, in 2003, under the GW Bush administration, that effectively derailed multiple State’s Attorneys General investigations into instances of Mortgage Abuse being carried out in their states by nationally chartered banks. The OCC stepped in and claimed states do not have the legal authority to investigate (regulate) national banks.
A position the OCC had never ever taken in it’s almost 150 year history.
After derailing state’s investigations, the OCC did nothing to halt the (we now know) rampant abuses taking place in the mortgage industry.
This should be David Walker’s legacy. He hung millions of Americans out to dry by refusing to do the claimed duty of his office and allowed these mortgage abuses to proceed for 5 more years, unchecked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Comptroller_of_the_Currency#Preemption_of_state_banking_regulation
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
Do you really believe that an online poll won’t say exactly what the masters what it to say? Three or four columns like Tommies, a couple of shout outs by some talking heads, an appearance on TDS or Colbert and they will have all the cover they need to start fudging those numbers. In two weeks he would go from 19th to 1st in a landslide.
And remember, these nozzles goal is not to get their guy elected it is to pull enough of the votes away from Obama so as to allow the GOP to win on a plurality or by EC totals. It was easily done in 2000.
cmorenc
@jibeaux:
If your last name were Johnson, just don’t nickname you and your son “Big” and “Little”.
Schlemizel
@amk:
Frankenstienbeck has been around for a long time & is no troll. You may also have misunderstood his comment, I know I had to read it twice & think his point was that WS was not getting their moneys worth out of Obama not the other way around. Personally I think for a Dem he is being awfully good to WS & they really have little to complain about but we all know they will only be truly happy once they are freed from all regulation so they can rape & plunder as the desire, free from all taxes on their booty and also free from any repercussion of their actions. They need a Republican
Liberal I have to say I have not seen before.
BBA
@Xboxershorts: The Comptroller General (head of GAO) is not the Comptroller of the Currency (head of OCC). Walker was in charge of audits and financial statements for the government, and he had nothing to do with bank regulation.
Still a lousy candidate.
amk
@Schlemizel: I know. My question was to Frankenstienbeck about that teh ‘liberal’.
Steve
@jibeaux: My name is Yon Yonson, I come from Wisconsin…
Suffern ACE
Well, if Petersen likes him, I know he’s my man.
chopper
the mustache is one of those guys who thinks the way to figure out how a machine works is to open it up, throw a wrench in it, and count the little pieces that fly out. and then look at the mess and ask someone else’s kid to clean it up.
chopper
@Schlemizel:
Liberal has been around for a while. he’s a halfling.
Schlemizel
Ah – so its IS my reading comprehension that is the problem! Sorry
AA+ Bonds
LOL, David motherfucking Walker? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? !
The guy who endorsed debtors’ prisons in his book? Saying they were the “economic manifestations” of American principles?
Benjamin Franklin
Holy Moly.
Commenter Complainer reminded me of this bit anachronistic history;
“
We live in anachronistic Times. I shudder to think.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Schlemizel:
So why doesn’t this also hurt Mittens? Mittens is the one with the dissatisfied bases looking for an alternative, not Obama. For all the handing wringing this Great White Mustached Hope has never been described as a Nader.
To get Mitten competitive they would need to get a Nader that could take as much of the left away from Obama as Mitten’s is losing with the Right. The 1% Dream Candidate isn’t going to do that.
liberal
@amk:
Never read FDL, except occasionally skim “DDay” when people link to him.
But thanks for playing.
amk
@liberal: and yet you got their wihiny
talking pointslies down to the pat.liberal
@Frankensteinbeck:
Would that it were so.
Just because they openly claim to hate Obama doesn’t mean he’s doing much to take on the FIRE sector.
Just because the folks who say “there’s no significant difference between the parties” are completely wrong doesn’t mean we can conclude that “the parties are significantly different on all the issues.”
IMHO FIRE sector-related issues are ones where the parties differ the least.
liberal
@amk:
That’s a plausible conclusion if we allow the commission of a logical fallacy or two.
Benjamin Franklin
@amk:
Identity politics? It would be instructive if you could counter the proposition.
Suffern ACE
@AA+ Bonds: Yep. Good lord, the guy reeks of “conservative technocrat who’ll lead us in an imposed austerity” like they installed in Italy and Greece. In other words, a Brooks and Friedman dreamboat. Macho public accountancy to restore the protestant work ethic and whatnot. Humbly, of course. Modestly, for sure. And he has billionaire backing him so we know he’s on the up-and-up. I would imagine that Friedman has to work hard to keep from rubbing his inner thigh whenever the guy speaks on the phone.
amk
@Benjamin Franklin: counter what proposition ? That obama is a ‘wall-street shilling corporatist’ whine of teh liberal ? Oh, please.
@liberal: do you talk that in real life or you like to show off only on blogs ?
trollhattan
@Howlin Wolfe:
Maybe a brokered convention(tm) could nominate Dirk Diggler? Republicans would consider that as outreach to teh laydeez.
Benjamin Franklin
@amk:
Your words, not liberals. But you could start with that….
Frankensteinbeck
@MomSense: and @Enhanced Voting Techniques:
And this is the thing, the very core. They would love to peel away votes from Obama. That’s the idea, disguising traditional (actually pretty right-wing) Republican policies by claiming they’re moderate policies. Their message is designed to suck votes away from Obama. It’s just not going to work, because as EVT says, it’s the GOP who has a big ‘can we have another option?’ problem.
@liberal:
Yes, it is so. The big banks’ profits and bonuses have dropped in the area of three quarters since FinReg came online. This is called ‘hitting them where it hurts’, the only thing they care about. If you refuse to join us in reality, how about a piece of theory? No one – NO ONE – who is in the pocket of Wall Street puts Elizabeth Warren in any kind of position of power.
@amk:
Please note the more-progressive-than-thou’s main feature, waving a hand and declaring that major legislative and executive acts somehow don’t count. We heard that refrain over and over with the ACA, but it’s becoming harder and harder to deny what a great accomplishment it was.
amk
@Benjamin Franklin: why ? certain peeps aka teabaggers are beyond edumafication. It’s more much fun to point and laugh at them.
Xboxershorts
@BBA: I stand corrected. I erroneously assumed the comptroller general was associated with the office of the comptroller.
Thank you for the correction.
OzoneR
@liberal:
Then what does it mean?
HyperIon
@AA+ Bonds: I followed the link and do not see where he endorsed debtors’ prison.
In fact he wrote:
Could you supply a link that supports your contention?
If not, consider a reading comprehension course.
A Humble Lurker
@Steve: I work in the lumberyard there?
Mnemosyne
@amk:
Of course, one can only respond using this.
I know who the babies of America would vote for in November!
Teejay
Any chance you’ve got a link to Friedman’s column or the title of it?