Taibbi Takes Down Friedman (Again)

Writer Matt Taibbi provides another hilarious takedown of a Tom Friedman book, this time skewering the mustachioed moron’s latest effort, “Hot, Flat and Crowded.” Friedman’s hypocrisy and obtuseness are given ample space, but the best lines engage the billionaire New York Times columnist’s raging malapropisms.

 

(Taibbi summed up Friedman as follows while eviscerating his previous book, “The World Is Flat”:

[Friedman] has an anti-ear, and it’s absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that’s guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.)

This time, it’s even easier for Taibbi:

My initial answer to that is that Friedman’s language choices over the years have been highly revealing: When a man who thinks you need to break a vase to get the water out of it starts arguing that you need to invade a country in order to change the minds of its people, you might want to start paying attention to how his approach to the vase problem worked out. Thomas Friedman is not a president, a pope, a general on the field of battle or any other kind of man of action. He doesn’t actually do anything apart from talk about shit in a newspaper. So in my mind it’s highly relevant if his manner of speaking is fucked.

Bush By The Numbers

In their January 2009 “Index” feature, Harper’s Magazine has an excellent numerical breakdown of Bush administration events. The whole list is worth reading, but the following really stood out.

Percentage of Americans in 2006 who believed that U.S. Muslims should have to carry special I.D.: 39

…

Minimum number of detainees who were tortured to death in U.S. custody: 8

…

Number of incidents of torture on prime-time network TV shows from 2002 to 2007: 897

Number on shows during the previous seven years: 110

…

Number of states John Kerry would have won in 2004 if votes by poor Americans were the only ones counted: 40

Number if votes by rich Americans were the only ones counted: 4

Matt Taibbi Skewers Bush One Last Time

Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi bids our worst President farewell with a hilarious imaginary exit interview in the pages of his magazine. Bush’s incompetence, incuriosity and inability to do anything more than be a monstrous bastard are all giving their just summation.

 

There’s only an excerpt available online, but the funniest parts seem to be in the print version, which is well worth tracking down. My favorite exchange:

We’re now in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Do you feel any responsibility for what’s happening?

Hey, markets is markets. Whatever happens in a market is what’s supposed to happen. You’re not supposed to interfere. That’s why they call the market the hidden hand. If I can see your hands, it’s communism.

 

Are you saying that what’s happening is good?

 

I’m saying if you hand a retard a pistol and he shoots himself, that’s the market. And markets are good.

 

So when it comes to the economy, your policy was to hand out pistols to retards.

 

All I’m saying is that if you did hand him a pistol, he might shoot himself and he might not. But if he does, that’s capitalism, and that’s the system we live by. It’s America.

Virtual Fold-Ins

I wrote back in April about the New York Times profile of renowned Mad magazine fold-in artist Al Jaffee, but I just noticed that they digitized a number of his fold-ins (you can even drag them into proper position using your mouse…ohhh, interactivity!)

Not all of the subject matter holds up; I prefer the earlier, anti-Vietnam stuff (and what’s up with the New York Times’ statement that “The Whitewater scandal haunted the Clinton White House for years”? Shouldn’t that be “scandal”?).

Still, it’s a fun selection from an incredible career.