"I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation."
This is important at more than one level. Thomas Friedman is now thinking. This in itself is news. Secondly, notice that his thinking can't get beyond a book by Tom Brokaw. Even that book is too complicated for him that it has occupied his mind a lot, as he admits. Thirdly, is this one of those plugs that are intended to get him more invitations to Meet the Press?