Thomas Friedman should be dubbed the shallow columnist. There are many things that one can write about him: the overuse of silly cliche, the immature sense of humor, duplicity, the tendency to rewrite what he had written to adjust to the situation (like he did on Iraq, when he supported the war before he became against when it did not go the way he predicted), his Zionist obsessions in foreign policy, the lack of wit, the lousy writing style (only the Economist pointed that out), and the insistence on only quoting friends of his who agree with him. But for me: all that is in one basket and the most distinctive quality of his writing is that he is shallow. He is very shallow. Can you image that guy reading a philosophical text? I can. I can see him commenting on the font and on the cover of the book that he is reading. That is it. He is first and foremost shallow. But here I am about to comment on his lies: "It is hard to exaggerate how much these Arab regimes wasted the lives of an entire Arab generation, with their foolish wars with Israel..." Well, Mr. Friedman: from 1948, until today there were many Arab-Israeli wars but only one of them (the October 1973 war) was initiated by Arabs while all others--every single one of them--was launched by Israel. Hell, I wish that Arabs initiated all the wars and I wish Arabs fought more wars with Israel.
PS Look at his obvious lies when he said that he never saw destruction like he saw in Hamah. The man was there during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. I guess Israeli destruction does not count in his book. Also, note that he ends his silly column by quoting the former foreign minister of one Arab potentate. For Marwan Musasher to be quoted on Arab democracy is like quoting Prince Al-Walid bin Talal on Marxism, or like quoting Prince Khalid bin Sultan on transparency, or like quoting Salam Fayyad on guerrilla warfare.
PS Look at his obvious lies when he said that he never saw destruction like he saw in Hamah. The man was there during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. I guess Israeli destruction does not count in his book. Also, note that he ends his silly column by quoting the former foreign minister of one Arab potentate. For Marwan Musasher to be quoted on Arab democracy is like quoting Prince Al-Walid bin Talal on Marxism, or like quoting Prince Khalid bin Sultan on transparency, or like quoting Salam Fayyad on guerrilla warfare.
