Tom Friedman And The New York Times Exposed
By Irwin N. Graulich (05/06/04)
No group has a monopoly on Uncle Toms. In today's p.c. sensitive environment, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary can only mean that a correspondent is critical of America or Israel. Similarly, being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is more often a red flag of a similarly bizarre world view. Among recent winners who have betrayed their peoples are (Uncle) Tom Friedman and Chairman Yasser Arafat, although the former is guilty of a double betrayal via America and Israel.
For this honor, The New York Times has chosen to reward their chief foreign affairs columnist with a cable tv show. Perhaps Mr. Arafat will be hosting "Meet The Press" sometime soon. Thomas L. Friedman's elite university vocabulary has obsessed on two distinct terms to describe the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. "Cycle of violence" and "Occupation" have become the most politically charged and fraudulent terms for explaining the violent situation in the Middle East, comparable to describing America's war with the Nazis using similar terminology.
Once upon a "Times," the newspaper was seriously regarded as the paper of record for an astute political viewpoint. Today, it has become a "leftist opinion rag," conveniently sandwiched into an otherwise exciting newspaper with truly in depth coverage of world events, along with terrific science, technology, finance, sports and arts coverage. So what gives with the op/ed pages?
Throughout its rich history, the incredible liberalism of "The Times" was successful at fighting the extreme left and right, while maintaining the difficult balance of centrism. However, after Vietnam, liberals unfortunately aligned themselves with the left who had correctly protested the war, but stopped fighting the left's other bad ideologies. The tragedy of Tom Friedman, The New York Times and essentially the rest of the liberal media is that they focused all of their energies exclusively against the right.
Tom Friedman is living proof that the Democratic Party of 2004 has absolutely no resemblance to the party of 30-40 years ago. Henry Jackson and John Kennedy were great liberal thinkers who believed in lower taxes and more military spending, among other things. Today, these two leading Democrats would be considered Reagan right wingers. Friedman has steered his newspaper to define the world not by good and bad, or right and wrong. Rather, they divide the world by powerful and powerless, First World and Third World, rich and poor.
This self-delusional complex has permitted intellectuals like Friedman to deny that terrorists are pure evil, and are rather "misunderstood." If we only "understood" their pain and desperate situation. That is why Friedman can interview 3 "terrorists/shahids in waiting" on a recent show, treating each one with the utmost dignity and respect.
The world according to Tom Friedman and his newspaper is supposed to show deep compassion for Third World nations who have not embraced modernity and wallow in staying poor, weak, desperate and non-democratic. Assigning blame for their pathetic lives to Israel, Jews and Americans is the convenient road for the amoral leftist and their third world coconspirators. The Stockholm Syndrome, where people relate to the causes of their evil kidnappers, has infected media brains, making the liberal left complicit with anti-American and antisemitic values.
How much attention was given by the media Friedmans when Hutus murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda? Virtually nothing was mentioned because black on black genocide does not quite matter to the liberal media nearly as much as when the stronger actor is a white American or a Jew; even if their acts were done for valid reasons.
To be very clear, the Palestinian people overwhelmingly (68%) would like another Holocaust to be brought upon the Jews of Israel. They pray for Israel, the tiny Jewish state, to be destroyed. Yet the Tom Friedman's of the world do not wish to acknowledge this reality because it is simply too painful. Sometimes truth hurts just like a disease and is the reason why Friedman has called terrorism "sick" and not evil. Since his nice Jewish mother probably wanted little Tom to be Dr. Friedman, he still wishes to fix "sickness" and make it all better. Since real evil can only be fixed through war, he conveniently keeps the terminology in the realm of medicine.
A majority of Americans understand their unique role in the world. Unfortunately, Thomas Friedman does not know his own role. He rationalizes along the lines of Europeans who believe that if we do enough good things, we will all be loved. Friedman does not realize that the rest of the world is overwhelmingly wrong and America has been absolutely right in virtually all of its recent unilateral actions. However, just like a little boy, he does not care as much about morality...right or wrong. He cares more about winning a popularity contest.
It is the liberal media that has overwhelmingly been saying for the past few years, "America must win the hearts and minds of the Arab and Muslim world." How can you convince them of America's goodness, when you cannot convince The New York Times of our decency?
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