More and more, I think maybe we should rise up and guillotine our overlords before they start herding us into Foxconn dormitories:
Bloomberg doesn’t have to win to succeed — or even stay in the race to the very end. Simply by running, participating in the debates and doing respectably in the polls — 15 to 20 percent — he could change the dynamic of the election and, most importantly, the course of the next administration, no matter who heads it. By running on important issues and offering sensible programs for addressing them — and showing that he had the support of the growing number of Americans who describe themselves as independents — he would compel the two candidates to gravitate toward some of his positions as Election Day neared. And, by taking part in the televised debates, he could impose a dose of reality on the election that would otherwise be missing. Congress would have to take note.
dmsilev
Jesus. Shouldn’t he rest on his “Wanker of the Decade” laurels for a week or so before returning to the field of battle?
Comrade Dread
I second the motion.
handsmile
@dmsilev:
I believe this was the MoU’s award acceptance speech.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Refused to click on the link and give him a web hit.
This piece is precisely why he’s the very deserving WOTD.
Based on this, he’ll have no trouble defending his title in another ten years…assuming his head’s not stuck on a pike somewhere.
zmullls
He must have read Atrios. There’s no other explanation.
He thought deeply to himself “Clearly I have not explained myself well enough. They do not understand the brilliance of clinging to undefined Centrism. I will redouble my efforts in today’s column.”
General Stuck
Friedman ought to quit writing columns at the NYT’s and do something really useful. Like join Broadway, write and produce a twenty year hit play we could call, ‘Fiddler On the Goof’. To rerun every 6 months, give or take.
driftglass
Mitt and Tommy-boy have this much in common: they both lie as freely and unashamedly as a dog licking his balls.
And why not?
After all, their loyal gatekeepers make sure that absolutely no one who would make them look like the lying ghouls they are gets past the velvet ropes.
Omnes Omnibus
WTF is wrong with this guy? He wants Democratic policies without icky Democrats? He wants to be ruled by a benevolent billionaire dictator? What?
Napoleon
IMO he is just trolling Atrois with that column.
Forum Transmitted Disease
You should go to China and actually look at those dorms. While not a place I’d choose to live – not that our wealthy intend to give us a choice in the matter – they do beat the “gutter” that far too many of our fellow
victims of capitalismcitizens sleep in every night.I’ve been in Chinese factory dorms. I can’t imagine the mindset of a person who went there and instead of thinking what I did, which is “damn, these poor people”, thought “hey, this would be a great future for America”. Guess I’m not a sociopath, cold comfort that will be when I’m in the Balloon Juice dorm with all you fuckers drawing lots as to who next gets to participate in Mandatory Organ Donation Day.
Brachiator
Let’s see now. Friedman says:
This sounds a lot like the austerity plan that is currently failing so stupendously in the UK.
What I loath about pundits is how they spew Village conventional wisdom, and can’t be bothered, just can’t be bothered at all, with the facts.
Cermet
If at first you utterly fail, double down.
This asswipe just doesn’t learn.
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: What Tom Friedman wants more than anything else is to be the Grand Vizier to a benevolent billionaire dictator.
I am suddenly very depressed.
rlrr
What the mustache wants is someone with the same policies as Obama or pre-Presidential run Romney (back when he pretended to be a moderate)…
amk
The guy who spent gazillions to win the fucking NY mayordom ?
Yeah, he is the ticket to win over the fucking ‘indies’ and ‘steer’ an insane country to the ‘middle’.
Why hasn’t the grey lady gone into bankruptcy yet with fucking friedman, still on its payroll ?
dr. bloor
MoU really thinks Michael Fucking Bloomberg could just hang around and pull 15 in national polls? He wouldn’t even poll that high with the cocktail weenie demo.
I swear, the word “assclown” was invented for
Tommy.
BGinCHI
First paragraph: Why does Tom Friedman have to suffer?
Rest of the piece: So he can tell you how smart he is.
Conclusion: He’s a fucking wanker.
What I already knew: Obama already stands for all the things he wants, but can’t get started on them because the Village he is Chief Idiot of enables the GOP.
Linda Featheringill
Wow. Somebody has been smoking the funny stuff.
It’s been a long time since I had any shit that was that good.
rlrr
Remember how Ross Perot’s run influenced Clinton’s Presidency? Or John Anderson’s run influencing Reagan?
Mike Goetz
There is no way the timing of this is coincidental. This is a pure tweak of Atrios. It has to be, it’s too perfect, right down to the story of Friedman catching a train.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Every reference to Friedman should refer to Atrios’s WotD post.
Mickey
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m still trying to learn 1% dog whistles but I think the translation is “I don’t want to pay more taxes”.
Davis X. Machina
@Brachiator: Screw facts — focus on the theory. The ineluctable dialectic will, in the end, over time, show them to have been, to be right.
We’re ruled by Leninists. And Calvinists. I can’t imagine a worse combination.
Crusty Dem
You could give a million idiots a million typewriters and 50 years and none could wank as hard as that paragraph. I’ve hated Friedman for years, but this could be his greatest masturbatory opus.
ETA: and I say that with confidence having read only your paragraph and TBogg’s..
General Stuck
Won’t happen. they wouldn’t be able to talk Louie Gohmert down from his tree house.
driftglass
The fact of Friedman’s flaccid, lying, tripe-slinging is well known.
What is less well-understood is exactly how he keeps his job. Week-in, week-out, who at the NYT believes that yes, what we need is More!Tom!Friedman! ? Who makes that decision?
Zifnab
Just purely out of curiosity, where does MoU think the Bloomberg votes are going to come from? The mildly-unsatisfied but perpetually embattled Democrats who are being reminded daily that the world is against them and they’ve got to stick together or perish? Or the Tea Party Republicans that are grudgingly accepting another iteration of George Bush after nine months of desperately seeking an alternative?
It’s like Friedman looked at the clusterfuck of the GOP Primary and angrily pounded the table demanding “More! More! More!”
BGinCHI
I’m telling you, this is Jeffrey Tambor with a rug.
No one could be this funny and actually believe what he’s saying.
rlrr
@rlrr:
Or Nader’s moderating influence on George W. Bush…
dmsilev
I also like how, after the bulk of the first hundred or so comments calls Friedman an ignorant jackass, the Times has closed the article to new comments.
Can’t have the ignorant rabble damaging the ego of the columnist, can we?
schrodinger's cat
Wanker of the decade wanks.
Plz NYT, if you want me to subscribe hire better columnists.
Culture of Truth
Clueless and narcisstic as always.
Getting an early start on 2022, I see.
catclub
@General Stuck: “Won’t happen. they wouldn’t be able to talk Louie Gohmert down from his tree house.”
The movie I saw had the Grim Reaper up in a tree and not coming down. Is that the one you meant?
Of Course, it showed that having NO death in the whole world was a disaster, but having no Louie Gomert does not sound so bad.
Brachiator
@Davis X. Machina:
Being ruled by Calvinists and Hobbesists?
Lev
Yeah, this is why I think y’all are misguided in hating so much on Bobo. He sucks, and my guess is his IQ doesn’t top 95, but I do think he’s the best pundit he can be. Friedman is smart enough to know that what he writes is garbage, though. I say, concentrate fire on him.
Suffern ACE
@rlrr: The difference is, I suppose, that John Anderson didn’t own a media company that writers wouldn’t mind working for. Half the press corps already talks like Mike Bloomberg. He wouldn’t even need to change the conversation.
General Stuck
More Romney slathering from the Village scribes.
Howie throws his clown shoos all in fo freedom.
Obviously, good news for Mitt Romney.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@General Stuck:
Great minds think alike. I was just front-paging this.
rikyrah
Bloomberg would have to spend, how much money?
The man doesn’t waste his money, and I’m tired of these middle of the road, third-way people. fuck them
rlrr
@General Stuck:
The only hope for moderates is that Romney is, in fact, a pathological liar…
Veritas
What a fucking toolbag.
Does anyone actually like Friedman? He seems to be hated both by conservatives and “progressives”. Well, and everybody else in the world. He’s a uniter, not a divider.
taylormattd
I realize we all know this is deeply stupid, both because the fantasy centrist proposals of his dreams are already being proposed by democrats and because it ignores the psychoticness and intransigence of republicans.
But does this type of thinking remind folks of anything else?
“All [candidate X] needs to do is discuss [magical proposal Y], and everything will be perfect”.
BULLYPULPIT!
taylormattd
@General Stuck: You know, I was just talking with a friend about a related topic.
You tell me what would have happened to John “Windsurfing is super ghey” Kerry if he had been caught on camera going on and on about dressage horses.
General Stuck
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
LoL, yup. You can always count on Howie to tell us up is down.
Veritas
Shorter Thomas FriedmanEvery Thomas Friedman Column: I want to be ruled by a technocratic, semi-fascist billionaire dictator.Elizabelle
History is not going to treat Tom Friedman’s body of work kindly.
He sees mirages of hope for regime change in barren desert lands, and cannot recognize a historically great president within his own.
All this “we’ve got to get a centrist” shit when we’ve got one, who is doing his best with a dysfunctional and deranged Republican party. And a lot of careerist Democrats in his own.
Piece of work, more accurately.
Martin
@rlrr:
My Republican mom, who doesn’t like Romney expressed her dislike thusly: “I know that Romney lies about many things. The problem for Republicans is that we can’t tell what he’s lying about, and once he gets into office nobody knows which side of every position he’s going to finally settle on. Everyone is assuming he’s going to flip to their position, which obviously can’t happen.”
At least with Obama she knows what she’s voting for, and that’s got a certain appeal to her.
rumpole
I was going to congratulate him on his award but they shut down comments. I has a sad.
schrodinger's cat
@Veritas: I hear that he has fans in Bangalore, who may or may not be taxi drivers.
handsmile
Confirming Atrios’ acuity in his selection, the MoU’s column today demonstrates why BoBo is just a rank amateur in the high art of Wankering.
Culture of Truth
“Gee that Mitt Romney has been promising a lot of things I hate, but he’s probably just a pandering opportunistic liar with no principles at all – just the man for me!”
Culture of Truth
Every Thomas Friedman Column:
I want toFor their own good the little people must be ruled by a technocratic, semi-fascist billionaire dictator.pamelabrown53
@General Stuck: Sooooo, big effing surprise, Howie Kurtz giving his own etch-a-sketch shakes. Jeezus, I abhor the world of no account 24/7 punditry.
Veritas
Friedman is, essentially, a fucking Fascist. He wants to run this country like Singapore and ignore all that messy democracy business. Sensible Centrist(tm) tax hikes for some, tiger moms and Foxconn Dorms for others!
JCT
@Martin:
And when you couple this wishy-washy nonsense to the fact that the psychotic House Republicans expect that Romney will serve as their rubber stamp so that they can “run things, bitchez” — the full-on disaster that a Romney Presidency represents is crystal-clear.
And HAHAHAHAHA about Bloomberg. Friedman needs to put down that crack pipe, right now. Take a guy who is so thin skinned that you can’t blow on him without a significant bleeding episode and couple it to his very active gun control advocacy and you have a GOP disaster. The crazy gun guys in my state hate Bloomberg more than Obama.
schrodinger's cat
We must be close to Rapture. The BJuicers and Veritas are in agreement that MoU sucks.
*Victory*
MoU has achieved his centrist dream.
Culture of Truth
I suppose we should be grateful he didn’t suggest Trump, because the Donald might actually do it.
Martin
Ted Nugent to meet with the Secret Service tomorrow. Putting a little smackdown on his violent comments, or is he there to give them tips on how to get the sexytime without the girls putting up a fuss? Maybe some of each.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes, every time Tom Friedman’s name comes up here, the troll Veritas reveals his mostly hidden sane side. MoU’s centrism is of a type that makes him an almost universally mocked object of scorn. This may be why he gets all his information from cabbies; they are the only people who will speak to him.
Betsy
No, we need to make our American world of rock, so that it remains a weathervane of stability for the house.
Friedman’s language is SO APT. He GETS IT that we can’t just bring umbrellas to gun fights, and he knows that as a nation, we must walk the knife-edge of understanding, because every rainy day is a two-edged sword.
Software people? I beg you — somebody, PLEASE, do a Friedman column phrase-generator.
Culture of Truth
Oh, SENSIBLE programs!!! Well why didn’y you say so before!?!!?
andrewsomething
If there really was a Bloombergian centrist in the election holding down ~15% of the electorate, wouldn’t the result actually be a more partisan winner? If I was a campaign adviser in that reality, I imagine that I’d be telling my candidate that the path to victory wouldn’t be fighting over the center but turning out the base.
Of course since the “Wanker of the Decade” is wrong about everything, this is no real surprise.
Culture of Truth
Updated: Every Thomas Friedman Column: Every Thomas Friedman Column:
I wantThe entire world must be ruled by a technocratic, semi-fascist billionaire dictator from America.Someguy
Bloomberg could run on the most important issues of the day – snow removal, helipad construction and whether we have too much sodium in restaurant food.
According to cab drivers in my neighborhood, this is a win-win. Why can’t we be more like China?
cmorenc
Can Friedman cite ANY third-party candidate in the entirety of American Presidential election history, most especially since the Civil War, who has EVER tangibly influenced the behavior of the winning Presidential candidate once in office? Not Ralph Nader. Not John Anderson. Not Teddy Roosevelt in his post-office run on the “Bull Moose” ticket. Even Abraham Lincoln, who as the initial GOP candidate had to run against three other factional parties in 1860, was not tangibly deflected by the three others he ran against.
However, examples can certainly be found of third-party candidates whose runs contributed to the victory of a candidate sharply counterproductive to everything the third-party candidate hoped to accomplish. See, Nader, Ralph.
Napoleon
@cmorenc:
Just for the record, people like to use the Republicans for some kind of an example of a 3rd party that wins the presidency but it was not. By the time Lincoln won, the Republicans had TWICE controlled the House, in the 3 prior Congresses had the second highest number of Senators and in the immediate prior presidential election their candidate was second in both popular vote and the Electoral College. By the time Lincoln ran the Republicans were in fact one of the two major parties in the US.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Veritas:
The word you’re groping for is ‘Corporatism’.
dr. bloor
@Martin:
I doubt the Boyz of the Secret Service need sexytime advice from a guys whose diet surely includes little blue pills and whose existence is centers on waving huge guns around in public.
catclub
@Culture of Truth: “The entire world must be ruled by a technocratic, semi-fascist billionaire dictator from America.”
I think Friedman would have few problems with Carlos Slim.
Of course, he IS from America, but I nearly did not notice.
United Statesians like me usually assume American == United Statesian. All the other folks in the hemisphere are irritated by that ignorance.
Judge Crater
Typical high Broderism. They just want a philosopher-king. Someone to elevate governance to their lofty and refined levels. Democracy is messy and ugly, and has become especially more so in the U.S. lately. So, the Friedmans of the world must turn up their noses and retreat behind the veil of “objectivity” while the streets crumble, crazy people rule the discourse and the fat-cats have a field day.
danimal
Wanker of the Decade is the perfect description of the writer of this kind of drivel. It’s not quite evil, though it eventually serves the same end (Romney Wins as Obama and Bloomberg Split the ‘Sane American’ Vote is almost certainly the end result). Impact the election indeed.
You can almost see him stroking his (chin) as he is writing his faux centrist porn.
Brachiator
@Martin:
Very interesting stuff. Romney apparently can fool pundits, but I wonder how he is going to overcome this character deficit with real Republican voters.
Meanwhile, apparently Mittens luvs himself some Bibi (don’t know if this was blogged about before, I’ve been busy with tax stuff)
Look for some heavy duty stuff about Mittens’ pro Israel bona fides.
Heliopause
I thought Friedman was for David Walker? Can’t he make up his mind which rich asshole technocrat he wants to be President? Maybe he wants a committee of them. Tom Friedman p0rn.
And what does he imagine Bloomberg will say in these debates that’s noticeably different from what Obama will say? Oh, right, I forgot; his policy positions are pretty close to the President’s, but he will get things done.
Petorado
I’m convinced “centrism” is essentially a call for Republicans to tone down their rabid socially conservative flame wars and return to working out their nasty, calculating ways in quiet rooms as the preferred method to get their regressive agenda done. Look at who the “centrist” options always turn out to be. It’s of course a given that Villagers can never support the Democratic agenda or candidates.
FlipYrWhig
Isn’t Friedman himself a billionaire, by marriage?
It’s totally fucking appalling that “moderates” of the Beltway variety think the biggest problem with America is that the lives of middle class and working-class people are too cushy. And, invariably, they do.
OTOH, I’m not sure Friedman’s fantasy is any more or less dopey than the fantasy of a Ron Paul run spotlighting civil liberties or a Sarah Palin run spurring a conversation about What Women Want.
FlipYrWhig
@Petorado: Oh, definitely. Would-be centrists like Friedman want conservatives minus the Bible. That’s why they swooned over John McCain for a couple of decades. Cut my taxes, ignore the preachers, Serious Party Infinity!
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Veritas:
So how is Friedman any different from Romney in that respect?
chrome agnomen
@Brachiator:
ate from the same strand of spaghetti…
what? are they lady and the tramp?
Napoleon
@FlipYrWhig:
His wife is from the family that founded/large shareholder in General Growth Properties, which went into bankruptcy protection a year or two ago.
http://www.ggp.com/
David in NY
Bloomberg is a terrible debater.
Dr. Squid
@rlrr: Nader never had intention of moderating the Cheney administration. The intention was to hope things got so bad that there would be a Great Progressive Revolution.
Worked so well that the voters went right back to their abusers after two years – with Nader’s encouragement, dontcha know.
Jay C
It really was quite gobsmacking to read Friedman’s column in the NYT today: I doubt very much whether he (or even his staffers) ever deign to read anything as lowly as a common blog, but it’s amazing that immediately after winning the WOTD “award”, he publishes an 800-word wank that merely confirms everything that got him that dubious distinction.
It’s amazing: he starts off with a (quite justifiable) rant about the crappy train service we have in this country (hint, Tom: which political party is it again that has a near-fetishitic animus against improving rail service?) – but then veers right off the rails into an almost caricaturish blather about the same old Third-Way/Responsible Center/Bloomberg-for-President bullshit fantasy. And of which, if nothing else is certain about its priorities, would be 110% damn-sure guaranteed to do f*ck-all about fixing up America’s train service.
Really: Democratic policies without Democrats: the Village Ideal!
FlipYrWhig
@Dr. Squid: That plan wasn’t about moderation, but it had the same structure: third-party candidacy runs to “inject issues into the conversation.” Friedman wants a conversation about social-welfare cuts and pragmatically considered tax hikes, so he dreams of a candidate who will do that, and comes up with Bloomie.
MikeTheZ
Why the fuck is there not a WotD tag yet?
Tom Q
So I scrolled through some of the comments after Friedman’s idiocy, and was thinking to myself, “Why does everyone think the comments were nasty to Friedman?”; they all seemed pretty supportive. Then I looked at the page top, and saw I was on comments designated “NYTimes picks”. They were only able to find about 25 from the 297 that weren’t mocking.
Actually, even the negative comments were a bit too narrowly focused on “Bloomberg’d be a Nader/we’d end up with Romney”. This is true, but Friedman’s thesis is wrong on another level: to assume that voters would line up and cheer for a David Cameron-like austerity budget is pure fantasy — and the voters would in this case be smarter than Friedman and his pals, because we see from the UK what a disaster austerity is in this conomic climate. (Not to mention, the first thing to go from such a budget would be those inmfrastructure improvements he’s whining about)
Does anyone ever explain reality to Friedman? You’d think even the occasional cab driver would let him have it between the eyes.
IM
@Brachiator:
That would at least be funny. Cruel, but funny.
Uncle Cosmo
@Brachiator: Represented, no doubt, by the venerable bedey-eyed law firm of Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short…
Julia Grey
As I said elsewhere, Mr. Friedman wants a miracle: infrastructure improvements made on declining tax revenues, because he and his fellow millionaires don’t see why they should contribute any more of their moolah to the common good, even as they rumble over potholes in their limousines.
And this miracle of “renewal,” Mr. Friedman believes, can be accomplished by some other undertaxed millionaire simply speaking in a miraculously persuasive voice at presidential debates.
“Wanking” does not begin to describe what this guy is doing. He’s hooked his dick up to an industrial milking machine.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
I’m beginning to wonder if Friedman is even for real. I think he could be nothing more than a scammer. I think we’ve all said something along the lines of, “Why is the New York Times paying this guy a million dollars a year (or whatever it is) to drool this stuff out onto a keyboard twice a week? I could write some dumb shit just as inane as that for a whole lot less.” I think that maybe the New York Times took some random reader up on this some years ago, and let the real Friedman go, and just runs cheap knockoffs that some fake Friedman writes. And why not? Everybody wins, right? The Times gets cheap Friedman shit to run, the fake Friedman gets a lot of money for doing not much work, and the real Friedman can spend all his time working on his next shitty book, while still getting credit for being a Serious Thinker.
Brachiator
@Uncle Cosmo:
Best play on words since the Joycean quip about those who were “yung and easily freudened.”
roc
Yeah, Perot’s run had so much impact he did it twice!
FlipYrWhig
@Tom Q: But part of the Friedman shtick is that it’s deplorable that the public isn’t virtuous and self-sacrificing enough to do what Friedmaniacs and other Broderians know is best for them. The people wouldn’t like it because they want a free lunch, see, and to Friedman Democrats talk only about the lunch and Republicans talk only about the bill, which is why The Truth Is Somewhere In The Middle.
FlipYrWhig
@Uncle Cosmo: Ooh, well played, old chap.
Citizen_X
What the hell? How far up his colon did Friedman have to reach to produce that factoid?
Headline I live to see: “TIMES COLUMNIST BEATEN BY CAB DRIVER.”
JC
What is the difference between saying guillotine our overlords and what Ted Nugent repeatedly says?
I realize you aren’t trying to incite any kind of violence and I agree with your fundamental point, but this is the kind of stuff that leads to “Both sides do it”
Shame on you…
Joe Bohemouth
“Congress would have to take note.”
This is the basic conceit of all these fantasies, isn’t it? Assume a can opener, where a can opener stands for Congress withering away into complicity.
This is one area where both VSPs and firebaggers have a lot in common.
pattonbt
@Joe Bohemouth: Exactly this.
Just like Congress “took note” of Obama’s landslide election victory and made the US a progressive Xanadu (hello 96 – 0 senate vote to not close Gitmo!)!
This is what these third way idiots don’t get. Sure an (I) pres could do some things like a dictator on foreign policy, but domestic policy they would have two parties out to destroy them.
Congress owns domestic policy (if it wants to – they can make themselves servile to a Pres of their own party – again, if they want to). A Pres can really only veto or sign and try and work the margins or set the debate.
An (I) Pres would have no constituency in congress and would just get hammered. Or they would have to sack up and choose a side. They have no chance of being a standard bearer and bringer of change. Our system just is designed for it.
HobbesAI
@General Stuck:
After ‘Fiddler On the Goof’ maybe Friedman could move on to that very earnest ‘Springtime for Centrism’ that’s been rattling around in his head.