Can’t stand Friedman for a few years now. He’s long been a laughingstock. People have run contests on the left “Write your own TF column”. So long as it includes a sweeping generalisation based on a conversation he had with a cab driver, you’ve pretty much nailed it. Include some hilariously shattered metaphors for the full TF effect.

Here is a recent and awesome Matt Taibbi takedown of his vacuity.

Someone wrote a column about “how to write a Thomas Friedman column” back in 2004. I can only find it hosted at this link:

Here is some of it:

1. Choose your title to intrigue the reader through its internal conflict:

a. War and Peas
b. Osama, Boulevardier
c. Big Problems, Little Women

5. Remember: Thomas Friedman is the Carrie Bradshaw of current events. Think Sex and the City, write “Sects and Tikriti”

6. Name-drop heavily, particularly describing intimate situations involving hard-to-reach people:

a. The Jacuzzi was nearly full when Ayman al-Zawahiri, former surgeon and now Al Qaeda’s head of operations, slid in.

b. It was Thomas Pynchon on the phone. “Tommy,” he said, probably aware we share that name ..

c. Despite the bumpy flight, I felt comfortable in the hands of a pilot as experienced as Amelia Earhart.

Thoman Friedman really deserves nothing but mockery at this point. I gather he used to be good, and I’ve heard his book “from beirut to jerusalem” was good, and I used to like him years ago- no more.