Wonkette
READ THIS REVIEW OF THOMAS FRIEDMAN: This is brutal and necessary. Ha, but it’s from 2005. April Fools, etc. [Matt Taibbi]
THE FLATTENING
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That is one of my favorite things that Matt ever wrote. Gracias.
Nice to be reminded how much smarter I am than this Friedman pundit. Also better looking. But not as rich. Everything has a price.
I’m just not stoned enough yet to crack the Rush Limbaugh joke: “The Fattening”
Here’s another assraping of Friedman by Taibbi, published Jan 2009:
http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html
Hey, guess who else was obsessed with naming the brand of every mundane good or service he used?
Patrick Bateman, Ellis’ very own American Psycho. Just sayin!
Matt Taibbi is a tell-it-like-it-is kind of journalist who is not afraid to use swear words. Is it possible to love Matt and Nate at the same time?
+10 to Taibbi for that review. He rulez.
Even better than a pie in the face. Thanks for this!
you cannot be serious: tell-it-like-it-is
The ability to be both incredibly self-assured and incredibly self-deluded must be required in every pundit. Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, none of them can ever admit they made a mistake. And they are authorities on everything under the sun. Instead of arguing about bonuses for financiers who screw up maybe some media companies should start paying their talking heads based on their actual abilities. If they have any.
Made it halfway through The World is Flat, and wish I’d had this review in hand before spending those two or three hours I’ll never get back.
Taibbi’s awesome.
Second best bad review ever! The best bad review ever written, however, is Anthony Lane’s hanging, drawing, and quartering of some Star Wars movie:
Sith. What kind of a word is that? Sith. It sounds to me like the noise that emerges when you block one nostril and blow through the other, but to George Lucas it is a name that trumpets evil.
Read the rest now.
The World Is Flat is really interesting…if you’ve been living in a cave for the past dozen years or so, or if you’re over the age of 50 and use dial-up AOL.
He should resign and be forced to turn over his porn-stache to Maureen Dowd.
An oldie but a goodie.
OMG, I wish I had read that back before my douchebag ex had purchased two copies of The World is Flat for us to read before bedtime. I got about 30 pages in before tossing it in the “Donate” bin. And by “Donate”, I mean “recycling”.
Friedman is a transparent tool (a Friedmanite metaphor) and an apologist for the worst forms of capitalist excess.
Lovely review….the champagne bubbles rise so sparklingly high over what appears to be a vast,deserted cheesefood pizza…it almost makes me applaud mediocrity for its ability to inspire such triumphant snark…
“The walls had fallen down and the Windows had opened, making the world much flatter than it had ever been—but the age of seamless global communication had not yet dawned.”
How the fuck do you open a window in a fallen wall? More to the point, why would you open a window in a fallen wall? Or did the walls somehow fall in such a way that they left the windows floating in place to be opened?
Four hundred and 73 pages of this, folks. Is there no God?
________________________________
FINALLY somebody who fucking despises that over-rated shit-stain. Goddammit most of the people I know love that hairy hobbit-fucker.
In college he was thrown into my Poli Sci classes as the fucking FOREMOST globalization know-it-all, like he was the fucking Rembrandt of op-ed bullshit— Wrote a paper about the fucker my Junior year criticizing him and was publically admonished, because WHO QUESTIONS FRIEDMAN, ANYWAY? If you want to use analogies to convey a point, trying to connect a shit sandwich with the intellectual community is a fucking terrible place to start. I hate you, Thomas Friedman. You hurt my GPA. I hate you.
Fucker.
shortsshortsshorts: Bobby Jindal screwed my high school GPA, after he stopped loaning me his notes regularly. He was second in the class though, missing Valedictorian by .02. We were friends until some dramatic event in his personal life caused him to abandon his heritage completely and embrace Ronald Reagan as his father-in-spirit. It was creepier than it sounds. Molestation by a male role model was highly suspected.
I wouldn’t put myself through reading Thomas Friedman, unless large sums of cash were involved.
How the fuck do you open a window in a fallen wall? More to the point, why would you open a window in a fallen wall? Or did the walls somehow fall in such a way that they left the windows floating in place to be opened?
Wow. And is this not Microsoft’s™ new ad campaign not 4 years later? Gah?
Now I’m trying to imagine seinfeld and friedman in a room together. It’s not pretty.
2druk2phluq: Seriously. His “literary presence” in my classes and everybody taking it as gospel was like endless Chinese water-torture, except with knives.
Taibbi is WAY smarter than I am. He’s a better writer than I could ever hope to be. I admire and envy without hating.
That said, I’ve seen him on Maher a few times & he’s got this perma-smirk that annoys the crap out of me. It’s the weirdest thing. I’m totally sympathetic to what he’s saying, yet the look on his face makes me want to punch it.
Am I alone on this?
Cinderella Boy: Life is much better if you never watch tv
That picture must be his O-face.
How come when I read Friedman though, I feel engaged and informed? Am I stupid? What should I do to see what y’all see?
And I think Frank Rich is great. Is that wrong too?
This will freak you weenies out:
Exciting Announcement From TGSCOM
NFA laws have been repealed through a long standing court battle in the 7th US Circuit Court.
The president of TGSCOM had sued the federal government on the grounds that the NFA law violated the Second Amendment of the Constitution. After heated and lengthy oral arguments, TGSCOM is now able to sell fully automatic weapons to the general public without tax stamps and the additional background check. The one stipulation to the agreement is that fully automatic rifles will be treated like handguns in that they will require a purchaser of 21 and older, the firearm must be transferred in the state of their residence (same as handguns) and that the buyer must submit to all regulations in the state of their residence.
What this means for you
We will now be adding a limited number of fully automatic firearms to our inventory. They will be sold on a first come first served basis. The benefit is that not only can you own them, but they do not have the $20,000 price tag they normally do.
California residents
Since this ruling is so new, there are no restrictions for California residents. Bet on the fact that they will be up to speed very quickly with reducing your Constitutional rights so take full advantage while you can!
Eric R. Thompson
President
TGSCOM
[April Fools! (Unfortunately . . . . :::Sigh:::).]
Hey Cinderella Boy, I’ve never seen him on Maher. Actually, the only stuff of his I’ve even read is this one Mr. Layne linked to and the other one commenter Jagorev linked to. Both are awesome, funny and spot-on, but I must say he does comes across as rather self-satisfied (which some commenter on nypress pointed out.)
But! Friedman is a tool, and he is inexplicably worshipped as a genius, so fire away Mr.
Taibbi!
Hmmmm? The son of the literary offenses of Fenimore Cooper?
Taibbi might add that, if it is your misfortune to hear him in person, Friedman is smug and self satisfied, and treats those who challenge him with hostility. He was also spectacularly, stupidly and repeatedly wrong on the war, the dick.
Magnus Maximus: WadISay: Can anyone think of a major media personality who isn’t self-satisfied?
Cinderella Boy: Some people have a face for print — most everybody, really. A good rule is to just never ever go on teevee. It gets you nothing, and people who might’ve liked your stuff before will say, “Well I still like the writing, but he seems like an asshole.”
Cinderella Boy: I’m never seen Matt Taibbi on the TV (but thanks for the warning) but I see a lot of what you’re talking about in his Friendman review. He’s a little too happy with himself for being so bitterly snarky, showing off his big snarky brain. Kinda like Friedman is a little too pleased with himself for making these ‘great discoveries’ about the world and then explaining them like he’s the only one who really understands.
“Meh” on both these smug bastards. I see better (and more concise) writing in the comments section of Wonkette each day.
OReillysVibrator: maybe it’s because you’re a dildo?
Neilist: HaHa! Good one. (I forgot you were the resident gun nut).
I’ll suffer the smugness if the talent is there, for sure. Plus, dude lived in Russia while I was taking bong hits on a couch. Not really in a position to judge.
Thomas Friedman is considered a genius because he married a very, very, very rich woman. If that isn’t genius, I don’t know what is.
I bought a shotgun once from TGSCOM and have gotten their emails ever since. (shoulda given them my b-league email; what was I thinking?)
You should see the ones they write for serious.
I love wingnut humor. Except the unintentional kind, which is dangerous.
It’s like, how many notches more flat could the world be? and the answer is none. None more flat.
Cinderella Boy: MAtt is always way too kewl for school.
I used to like him.
Now he annoys me. Even when I agree with him he goes too far just be be snarky…
Damn he should be here.
Taibbi is a sexy, sexy man.
Sorry, i dont care what his name is, he is hot.
yum.
shortsshortsshorts: Tell it, brother!
Neilist: California is in the 9th Circuit. Therefore, for the suit to be true, it should have involved hair-gel, the statutory amount hot milk to be used in a latte, or hispanic labor or whether copper casings found in East LA should fall under the category of “recylables” or “criminal evidence”.
FINALLY someone properly indicted Thomas Friedman. Shame on shows that book him.
That almost made me hort Kraeting Deang, a traditional Thai energy drink out of my nose. I first had it during a stopover in Singapore. Right by the airport taxi stand there was a Bengali man named Mukti was selling the tiny little medicine bottles out of a beat up Samsonite suitcase patched with dented sheets of tin from Stella Extra Virgin Olive Oil containers. I grabbed one from him before I jumped in the back of a natural gas powered Toyota Crown. I was surprised to see one in Singapore because to the best of my knowledge they were made in a Korean factory owned by a joint Toyota/Hyundai holding company specifically for use in Hong Kong. By the time I got to the Singapore Intercontinental I felt better than I had since the last time I got a “super lucky star” massage from a Mongolian woman in a Chilean day spa.
jagorev:
Thanks. If I despised the intellectual “Penny Weight” Friedman before, I despise him more now.
Particularly after reading his latest column: http://online.indianagazette.com/articles/2009/03/31/opinions/syndicated_columnists/10013348.txt
Friedman is our era’s print version of the spoken words of Rod McKuen.
oooooh goody , we get to stare at Friedman’s constipation face all night!
As much I as I hate spreading libral socialist propaganda, but I really really really really hate Glenn Beck. And Colbert eviscerated him:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/01/stephen-colbert-rips-apar_n_181673.html
If I wrote like Taibbi, I’d have a perma-smirk too. He’s fucking refreshing after, well, just about everyone else. To wit, Taibbi on AIG et al.:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print
but beware! set your AOL immoral content blockers to code red, he uses filthy, filthy language.
Wow, before I read that I’d always thought that Friedman was a useless douchebag who deserved to be kicked in the junk. Now I realize that he is a complete genius who deserves to kicked in the junk, impaled on a rusty fence post and set on fire. Only metaphorically, of course!
I met Taibbi once, for maybe ten seconds. Even pre-Rolling Stone, he had the perma-smirk. I was OK with it though. He was Matt Taibbi after all, and I was a random schlub stopping by the Buffalo Beast offices for back issues.
It was toward the end of his time here. Not long after he emerged in NYC, but for a few months he wrote a column just for us peasants, called “Ivory Tower.” Noblesse oblige and all that. (Smirky logo, as I recall.) At the time I shrugged it off as irony, but he was just being honest.
I’m still OK with it. He’s that good. Buffalo had Mark Twain for a little while, and we had Matt Taibbi for a little while. If in 100 years there still is such a thing as a Central Library, ours may well have a Matt Taibbi Room.
Is it weird that the thought of Thomas Friedman and Peggy Noonan making beautiful, insane babies together makes me kind of wistful?
urrca: So long as the thought doesn’t make you plunk your magic twanger.
It does me.
urrca: Sadist.
shortsshortsshorts:
It’s good that you haven’t taken this experience personally.
As for me, I would have salted his tampons with healthy dash of cayenne.
Yet, this is what being Mediterranean is all about. Don’t forget and never forgive.
S.Luggo: Oh fucking please. Sorry for taking what the our previous President did for us, previously. OH NOES. Friedman whacked off to the Iraq War for a number of years. You don’t take it seriously? Really? Let’s CYBER.
Previously, previous, the our, previous.
Fuck. Yes I am having grammar fuck up April Fools day or something, but still, ______________.
boy_howdy: Also there’s a long tradition of the best writers being pricks. You can’t judge a writer by his likeability as a person — they’re like directors or violinists — that many of them aren’t sociable or are just not interested or whatever doesn’t affect my respect for what they do. And yeah, he does look annoying, but I always thought it was because he resembles a certain relative I never liked.
shortsshortsshorts:
1. As the Elizabethan sonneteers might verse, my response was intended to be purely ironical.
2. “ whacked off”? I prefer to say that Friedman engaged in a criminally public, penis stroking, moist climatic act of macho intellectual masturbation in his Onanism for Iraq War. But then again, I am cursed with a more circumspect sensibility than you.
Neilist: Why don’t you stick a gun up your ass and pull the trigger already? Machine humping idiot.
I no longer receive Christmas presents from my family after an incident involving a gift copy of The World Is Flat [i'm not kidding]
MarieDeGournay: Bad day?
1999, a world away. Phil Gramm pitches the “Milton Friedman Congressional Gold Medal Act” authorizing the government to spend $30,000 to “present, on behalf of the Congress, a gold medal of appropriate design to Milton Friedman in recognition of his outstanding and enduring contributions to individual freedom and opportunity in American society through his exhaustive research and teaching of economics, and his extensive writings on economics and public policy.”
Aw, different Friedman. Oh well, I’ll go back to being honest about not knowing anything.
So how did Friedman reply?
Zhu Bajie
slinkimalinki: WHAT? How dare you! Ohh, the handle.
Just finished.
So sad this piece had to end.
So much joy in each sentence.
Guess I’ll just have to read it again.
S.Luggo: I never mean to offend, sluggo, but I drink far too much.
There is a point where all hope is lost.
Thanks for bringing this back. I hope Friedman put the profits from that book and his accompanying lecture tours and consulting fees into a cozy little Bernie Madoff account.
Taibbi did an excellent piece in ‘04 after he posed as a GOP volunteer in FL.
His piece on the Aerial Wolf Killer, wherein he characterized her at the Rep.
Nat’l Convention as “Gidget addressing the Reichstag” was chock full of snarky
goodness. He never fails to deliver the lolz.