The Mustache Of Understanding

Tom Friedman used to be a pretty decent writer who had decent ideas and a decent regard for what goes in the world.  The only decent thing about him these days is that he's still a decent writer - or more accurately: he can put words together in a way that makes a point and makes it fairly easy to understand the point.

Here he is trying desperately to keep us from realizing how culpable he is for having contributed mightily to the steaming pile of crap that is Centrism, while not working nearly hard enough to keep the Repubs from losing their minds completely.

HARD-LINE conservatives have gone to new extremes lately in opposing abortion. Last week, Richard Mourdock, the Tea Party-backed Republican Senate candidate in Indiana, declared during a debate that he was against abortion even in the event of rape because after much thought he “came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” That came on the heels of the Tea Party-backed Republican Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois saying after a recent debate that he opposed abortion even in cases where the life of the mother is in danger, because “with modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance” in which a woman would not survive without an abortion. “Health of the mother has become a tool for abortions anytime, for any reason,” Walsh said.

He goes on with some pretty cookie-cutter verbiage (that most middle schoolers could come up with), pointing out that wearing the "pro-life" badge is inconsistent with a position that isn't also in favor of gun control (eg), etc.

So it's nice to see Friedman with his head somewhere other than up his own ass for a change, but I have to wonder why he waited until now to start writing about the extreme positions being staked out by an increasing number of Repubs.

Maybe he finally senses a certain change in how most Americans think about such things. Or maybe he senses a certain change in how more and more of his readers are getting hip to the fact that he's a billionaire know-nothing who tripped and fell into a river of cash, and who now needs us to forget he's actually a douche bag shill for Corporate Media.

I dunno - but he's doing nothing so much as he's playing the very old game of "discovering" an issue and standing in front of it, hoping we'll be fooled into thinking he's leading us in some way.

Fuck him - don't get stupid and hit him; and don't throw shit at his head, but if you see this dick in a bar somewhere, do us all a solid and spit in his drink.