Freidman Hacks Out

What on Earth has happened to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman? Once upon a time I used to think he had something on the ball. I read The World is Flat and liked it for the same reasons I used to also enjoy Friedman's newspaper column. Friedman is practically the only major pundit to consistently discuss the broad, long range technological trends and major societal transformations that are occurring today. Not that I always agreed with Friedman's take on those changes, but at least he talked about them in a way that showed he understood that the future will not be like the present, and that the best way to deal with those changes is first of all to acknowledge them.

However, it is becoming increasingly clear that Friedman is one of those commentators who has become completely unhinged in the wake of the rise of Donald Trump. In fact, he has become outright dishonest and deceptive at times in his fervor to attack the president. I first noticed this in June, when Friedman wrote a column, dripping with his personal contempt, denouncing President Trump for withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal.

I agree with Friedman that it was a mistake to scuttle the treaty, but I was amazed to see that Friedman neglected to mention that Hillary Clinton was just as determined to withdraw from the agreement as Trump was and repeatedly stressed her determination to do so during her presidential campaign. It is outrageous for Friedman to have left that fact our of his column, and to have completely spared Clinton any of the contempt he showed for Trump for doing precisely what Hillary had also sworn to do. It is an omission that undermines the credibility of his entire piece.

Another outrageous display of selective memory appeared in a more recent column in which Friedman took Trump to task for leaving the Paris Climate Accord. At one point Friedman exclaims, "He scrapped the Paris climate treaty without consulting one climate scientist — and no G.O.P. leader protested. Think about that." What is he talking about? No less a climate guru than Al Gore himself was called in to meet personally with the president and permitted to give Trump, face to face, the best case he could make in favor of staying in the climate deal, once during the presidential transition, and then in other conversations before Trump made his final decision. Like millions of other Americans, the President found Gore's arguments unpersuasive, but what more could Trump have done to give the other side a fair hearing?

Omissions of this magnitude could not have been made innocently. Either Friedman thinks his audience is too ignorant to know these details, or feels that, like many other Trump haters, he simply does not care about facts if they get in the way of attacking Trump. It's a shame that Friedman appears to be devolving into a partisan hack, because he used to have interesting and sometimes even important things to say. Sadly, in his current state of anti-Trump derangement, Friedman's columns have become dishonest to the point of deception.

Over the weekend, this full page ad in the Springfield Republican announced the granting of The Massachusetts Governor's Award for the Humanities to the newspaper's head honcho David Starr.

Starr has done good work for a variety of local charitable endeavors over the years, but in my mind those good works are largely cancelled by Starr's very negative role meddling in local politics. Also, if this is supposedly the Governor's humanitarian award, does Republican Charlie Baker know that David Starr has always done everything he could to protect and preserve the dominant, often corrupt Democratic Party political machines both in Springfield and throughout the Valley? I mean really, was it impossible for the Governor to find a deserving Republican for the award?

Finally, like virtually every music lover, I am dismayed by the untimely death of singer/songwriter Tom Petty. I saw Petty in concert once with Bob Dylan at the Hartford Civic Center in the mid-80's. I recall that at one point in the show Petty opened his trademark long coat to reveal that on the inside lining there was sewn a Confederate flag. Believe it or not, no one shrieked in outrage, fainted in shock or ran off in search of a safe space.

The audience that night probably consisted overwhelmingly of New England Yankees, but we responded with applause, merely as a polite gesture towards a visiting musician from the South. The same courtesy was similarly shown to Dixie rockers who passed through the Pioneer Valley like the Allman Brothers, Lynard Skynard, Molly Hatchet and other good ol' boy bands who often performed on stages festooned with the Stars and Bars. Those were simpler times, before everybody decided to work so hard at finding something to be offended by.

One of Petty's best known hits I Won't Back Down was the theme song for Dan Yorke's radio shows when he was working in the Pioneer Valley on WHYN and WNNZ back in the 80's and 90's. To this day, whenever I hear that song I think of the Yorke Show.