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Tom Friedman of The New York Times – a man who should, but never will be fired

by Mojambo ( 109 Comments › )
Filed under Anti-semitism, Barack Obama, Iran, Israel, John Kerry, Media, Palestinians at November 26th, 2013 - 7:00 am

Tom Friedman and others like him (Andrew Sullivan for one) have become increasingly obnoxious in their blatant Judeophobic rants in their almost unreadable columns. The author points out if they had said half the things about other ethnic or religious groups (well excluding Christians) they would have been terminated.

by Martin Sherman

The powerful pro-Israel lobby… can force the administration to defend Israel… even when it knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s. – Thomas L. Friedman, “Israel: Adrift at Sea Alone,” September 17, 2011.

The main Israel lobby, Aipac [sic], has made itself the feared arbiter of which lawmakers are “pro” and which are “anti-Israel” and, therefore, who should get donations and who should not – and you have a situation in which there are almost no brakes, no red lights, around Israel coming from America anymore. – Thomas L. Friedman, “Why Not in Vegas?,” July 31, 2012.

Never have I seen more lawmakers – Democrats and Republicans – more willing to take Israel’s side against their own president’s [policy]. I’m certain this comes less from any careful consideration of the facts and more from a growing tendency by many American lawmakers to do whatever the Israel lobby asks them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and campaign donations. – Thomas L. Friedman, “Let’s Make a Deal,” November 19, 2013.

Tom Friedman is back in Judeophobic “Elders-of- Zion-Jews-rule-the-world” mode. In his latest rant in The New York Times, “Let’s Make a Deal” (November 19, 2013), in which he berated Israel, as the Jewish state, and its US supporters for opposing the emerging appeasement of Iran, Friedman sinks to a new nadir of journalistic drivel and racist incitement –which is no mean feat, given the lows he has stooped to in the past.

Potpourri of pernicious poppycock

As he is normally prone to do, when writing on Israel, Friedman has, in his column this week, penned his usual pernicious potpourri of the malicious and the mendacious, generously seasoned with logical inconsistencies and factual inaccuracies.

Of course, journalists are permitted to produce pure poppycock if the media outlet they are associated with has no objection to publishing it, or to leading its readers astray. So the claptrap that Friedman inflicts on his readers in not really a valid reason for his dismissal by the NYT – which has given ample indication that not only does it have no objection to leading its readers astray, but when it comes to Israel, it has a strong interest in doing so.

But surely, his unbridled bigotry is such a reason – especially in the pristinely politically-correct milieu Friedman is associated with.

Indeed, in recent years, there have been numerous instances of people, across the social strata–from well-known media celebrities to unknown fast-food employees– being dismissed from their jobs for racial slurs far less serious, less malevolent and less calculated than those expressed by Friedman.

The fact that Friedman’s bigoted bile is directed against his own ethnic kinfolk should make little difference.

Indeed, earlier this year a high-profile former black football star was fired from his position as a TV sports commentator for making racially disparaging remarks about his black co-host.

[…..]

In past columns, I have repeatedly exposed the faulty– often blatantly self-contradictory – analysis and argumentation that Friedman employs in his frequent anti-Israel tirades.

His offering this week is no less flawed than his previous ones. However, rather than once again focusing on the almost infantile claims and glaring non-sequiturs that “grace” Friedman’s latest column, I shall turn attention to his incendiary Judeophobic innuendo; referring to his faulty logic and factual inaccuracies only when these are instrumental in shedding light on his hurtful racial slurs and his hateful racist incitement.

Indeed, in a world where you can lose your job for making remarks that are borderline offensive, expressing little more than awareness of someone’s ethnic origins/sexual preferences, the lack of outrage at Friedman’s inflammatory insinuations is remarkable.

After all, were Friedman to employ the same derogatory innuendo that appeared in his recent NYT columns towards any other minority – gays, blacks, Hispanics – he would be unceremoniously fired. But when it comes to the Jews, apparently things are different.

[……]

As can be seen from the introductory excerpts, this has been a recurring theme in his columns over recent years, making it look like an ongoing vendetta against the Jewish state and its Jewish supporters in the US and very much a calculated campaign.

Bin Laden would concur

Friedman’s repeated allegations point almost inexorably to an unequivocal conclusion: The Jews control US foreign policy and have reduced America to no more than a banana republic, where elected representatives are willing to sell their nation’s – and hence their constituents’ – interests to the highest bidder and can be bought by unscrupulous, conniving Judeo-plutocrats (with hooked noses?).

Mearsheimer and Walt – and subscribers to their venomous views regarding the sinister influence of the “Israel (read, “Jewish”) Lobby”– could hardly ask for a more ringing endorsement of their noxious doctrine! Indeed, much of the criticism leveled at Mearsheimer and Walt’s shoddy slander could equally apply to Friedman’s writings.

Thus, following the endorsement of their work by none other than Osama bin Laden(!), who urged his followers to read their book, David Rothkopf, chief executive and editor at large of the Foreign Policy Group wrote: “All [this] book did was weave precisely the kind of fabric of partial truths and old biases that are used to dress up the hatreds of demagogues everywhere.”

[……]

The left-leaning The Forward, in reportedly the longest editorial in the paper’s 120-year history, aptly titled “In Dark Times, Blame the Jews,” castigated the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis.

Expressing surprised concern at “the flimsiness of their work,” it noted disparagingly, “Countless facts are simply wrong. Long stretches of argument are implausible, at times almost comically so….An undergraduate submitting work like this would be laughed out of class.”

So would Friedman’s – as will shortly be shown.

What Friedman cannot fathom

Like Mearsheimer and Walt, Friedman seems totally incapable of fathoming the true texture of the Israel-US bond – at least, as it was perceived and prevailed until the advent of the current Islamophilic administration that has proved itself to be totally unmoored from the Judeo- Christian heritage, which underpinned that bond for decades.

Thus, The Forward concluded its previously-mentioned editorial with the following words: “Mearsheimer and Walt join a long line of critics who dislike Israel so deeply that they cannot fathom the support it enjoys in America, and so they search for some malign power capable of perverting America’s good sense. They find it, as others have before, in the Jews.”

This is a diagnosis that fits Friedman’s malevolent malaise like a glove.

[……]

‘Wrong facts, comical arguments’

“Countless facts are simply wrong. Long stretches of argument are implausible, at times almost comically so.”

This is how The Forward characterized the Mearsheimer-Walt dogma. Now watch how this pertains to what Friedman provides his readers.

With stunning gall, he writes: “Iran has lied and cheated its way to the precipice of building a bomb, and without tough economic sanctions – sanctions that President Obama engineered…. Iran would not be at the negotiating table.”

Sanctions that Obama engineered? Really? One can only wonder whether Friedman is counting on his readers’ total ignorance or total amnesia. Or whether he is suffering from them himself.

In fact the Obama administration was one of the greatest obstacles to the sanctions that brought the Iranians to the table, virtually coerced to do so by pressure from Congress (and even some Europeans).

He presumably missed this report in The Wall Street Journal (August 8, 2011): “The Obama administration has fought Congress on Iran sanctions for much of its time in office. The White House deeply opposed a bipartisan congressional effort in 2011 to impose US sanctions on Iran’s central bank, the primary conduit for Tehran’s oil exports. US officials today acknowledge that the sanctioning of Iran’s central bank, and the European Union’s oil embargo on Tehran, have probably been the most punishing measures on Iran to date.”

So much for the “Obama-engineered-sanctions” canard!

‘Wrong , comical ’ (cont.)

But more of the ludicrous is yet to come. As we have seen Friedman concedes: “Iran has lied and cheated its way to the precipice of building a bomb, and… without tough economic sanctions Iran would not be at the negotiating table.” Incredibly, he now recommends the US desist from the only thing that has worked (i.e. tough sanctions) and adopt what hasn’t (i.e. belief in the goodwill of those who have lied and cheated).You have to read to believe!

Friedman tries to reassure us that “the deal Kerry is trying to forge with Iran [by dialing down the sanctions] is good for us and our allies”.

Well, Tom, that line might carry a bit more weight if the Obama-Kerry duo had given even the slightest indication that they have a clue about foreign policy, in general, and in the Mideast, in particular. Sadly, quite the opposite seems to be true. They have shredded the standing of the US across the globe but especially in this region, where the wreckages of American policy initiatives (and non-initiatives) litter the horizon –in Libya, in Egypt (repeatedly), in Syria.

[…….]

He then goes on to make the totally unsubstantiated and implausible assertion that: Kerry’s deal would roll back Iran’s nuclear program, while also strengthening more moderate tendencies in Iran.”

Yeah, right, Tom. We saw how eagerly Obama seized that opportunity in 2009, when, as the moderates rose to protest a rigged election and were brutally repressed, he remarked, impotently, that it was “up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be.”

Why fire Friedman forthwith

Tom Friedman has surrendered every shred of professional integrity in favor of defending an indefensible policy of an indefensible administration.

He has shown himself to be ill-informed and incoherent; either woefully misled himself or willfully misleading his readers.

But worse, he is exploiting his potent journalistic platform to incite against the Jews, to insinuate–indeed openly accuse – that they are disloyal to their country or, at least, have a greater loyalty to another.

This is as unacceptable as it is untrue. In this, he brings discredit to his profession and his paper. For this, he should be fired – forthwith!

Read the rest – Fire Freidman – forthwith

Tags: Martin Sherman
Posted in Anti-semitism, Barack Obama, Iran, Israel, John Kerry, Media, Palestinians | 109 Comments »

In the Obama administration, gross incompetence has almost reached the level of near-buffoonery

by Mojambo ( 158 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Economy, Elections 2012, Judaism, Mitt Romney, Politics, Progressives, Republican Party, Socialism, unemployment at October 24th, 2012 - 11:00 am

Step by step Mr. Sherman deconstructs the miserable failure that is the Obama record and takes liberal American Jews to task for their befuddled and outdated thinking.

by Martin Sherman

What liberals believe needs to be changed or discarded — and apologized for to other nations — is precisely what conservatives are dedicated to preserving, reinvigorating and proudly defending against attack. American Jewry surely belongs with the conservatives rather than the liberals. For the social, political and moral system that liberals wish to transform is the very system in and through which Jews found a home such as they had never discovered in all their forced wanderings throughout the centuries over the face of the earth. – Norman Podhoretz, Why Are Jews Liberals? September 10, 2009

The most disturbing aspect of the American Jewish community’s devotion to Obama and the Democrats is that it indicates that the vast majority of American Jews have abandoned their faculties for independent thought and judgment in favor of conformism and slavish partisanship.– Caroline B. Glick, “US Jewry’s cherished values,” The Jerusalem Post, October 12, 2012

As I have stated previously, I am not among the most strident critics of Barack Obama. Indeed, I find some of the vitriol directed against him by some of his more radical detractors both tasteless and baseless.

That said, I am convinced that his reelection is liable to be a calamity of epic proportions — with incalculable, probably irreversible, repercussions for US interests, both at home and abroad (at least as they have been traditionally perceived), and for those of its longstanding allies — particularly Israel.

[….]
Self-contradictory & self-obstructive

Yet, despite the massive metamorphosis that the US Democratic Party has undergone since the days of “Scoop” Jackson, Daniel Moynihan and Tom Lantos, and its lurch leftward toward social radicalism, away from its traditional values, Jewish allegiance to it has remained undiminished.

Attempts have been made to explain this by invoking the ingrained heritage of Jewish social liberalism. In an article titled “Why Jewish voters will choose Obama over Romney,” Moment magazine editor Nadine Epstein writes: “Our 2012 Moment magazine political survey shows that a whopping 82 percent of the Jewish Americans who responded believe that it is the duty of a Jew to feel a responsibility to care for the poor.”

But based on the evidence, this hardly seems a compelling rationale to support Obama. Quite the opposite. Under his policies, poverty has increased significantly, not only making more people poor, but making the poor poorer.

[……..]

Latinos/Hispanics and Blacks suffer chronically high rates of joblessness. Consider the following excerpts from a review (September 10) in The Huffington Post’s Latino Voices: “The latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that black and Latino unemployment remain critically elevated… While overall unemployment fell slightly… black and Latino unemployment did not follow the same course… Communities of color are mired in an economic depression. Yet the president struggles to publicly acknowledge it.”

So much for social sensitivity.

The Huffington Post noted: “Though unemployment is a concern amongst most Americans, the situation is dire for black and Latino families… more black and Latino men are without work than others… the male workforce participation rate [has been pushed] to a new low unseen since the federal government began reporting this data in 1948.”

Likewise, Colorlines – a site covering race and politics – sternly decried Obama’s policies (September 6): “Black and Latino employment is an unmitigated disaster. More than one out of seven African-Americans is without work. One out of 10 Latinos is jobless. When stacked up against white unemployment, the contrast is even more jarring. The African-American unemployment rate is 100 percent higher than that of whites. Latino unemployment is 40 percent greater. The situation amongst youth of color is even worse. One out of three young African- Americans is out of work, and more than one in five young Latinos is unemployed. In certain cities across America, almost 50 percent of youth of color can’t find a job.”

With a caustic touch, it added damningly: “The dispiritive impact of President Obama’s silence on black and brown joblessness burst into full view almost exactly a year ago, in a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus. In that September 2011 talk, Obama responded to the CBC’s push for race-specific action on unemployment by telling its members to ‘stop complaining.’”

What about women?

Neither have women been blessed by good fortune under the current administration. The New York Times (August 7) reported that jobless rates among single women has nearly doubled (to 11%) compared with pre-recession levels (6%).

[……..]

Under the heading “Obama Economy Leaves Women Behind” and quoting the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, one report published last month (September 4) revealed: “The sluggish economy under President Obama has been particularly hard on women… six million are currently unemployed, more than 400,000 have lost their jobs, and poverty rates among women have soared to record highs… ” Adding more gloom to these glum gender-based figures, it noted: “Since Obama took office, the unemployment rate among women has jumped from 7 percent to 8.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Young women have fared even worse. Their unemployment rate has risen from 12.5 percent to 14.4 percent since 2009.”

In light of the worsening plight of the poor, and the growing despair among minorities and women, one might be excused at being a little perplexed as to how continuing support for the policies — and the policy-maker who created them – could be squared with Jewish social sensibilities invoked for that support.

[….]
A statistical fluke?

Some Obama-philes may take heart at last month’s employment figures, which for the first time in more than 40 months indicated that the US unemployment rate had dropped below 8% – to 7.8%. In truth, however, they are cold comfort and to base any optimism on them would be little more than grasping at straws. After all, in the last month of the Bush administration (December 2008), the level was 7.3%.

[……..]

Some have difficulty working out how a jobs increase of 114,000 could generate a 0.3% drop in unemployment in a workforce comprising 155 million (where 0.1% is 155,000); while in the preceding month, an additional 96,000 jobs only resulted in a drop of 0.1%. (If some statistically proficient reader/talkbacker could clarify this conundrum, I would be most grateful.)

But whatever the explanation of the statistical wizardry behind the figures, even committed Obama supporters have advised caution. The usually sycophantic New York Times offered this downbeat assessment in its October 6 editorial: “The unemployment rate fell, from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent last month, a welcome drop, though it appears to be partly due to a statistical fluke and partly to more part-time employment, which is better than no work, but hardly the sign of a reliably robust job market.”

[……..]

Social sensitivity anyone?

The article ends with the trenchant question, “Does anyone really think the second term will be any different?” But if a sense of social solidarity is the prime motivation of US Jews’ endorsement of Obama, we can only wonder at their remarkable lack of censure of the Obamas’ extravagant personal lifestyle, of regal vacations and aristocratic pastimes at the taxpayers’ expense — including a jaunt to Spain that drew off almost half a million dollars from the national coffers.

“The Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern- day Ancien Régime: extravagant and out of touch with the American people,” blared a headline in the British Daily Telegraph on Thursday. The ensuing article commented acerbically on the lavish White House expenditures: “It sends a message of indifference, even contempt, for the millions of Americans who are struggling just to feed their families on a daily basis and pay the mortgage, while the size of the national debt balloons to Greek-style proportions.”

It pointed out that “the liberal-dominated US mainstream media have largely ignored the story.” No surprise there.

Almost buffoonery

I could go on enumerating additional reasons why US Jewry has good reason to dramatically restructure its voting patterns — not despite its “cherished values” but because of them. However, the constraints of space dictate otherwise.

But allow me to end with this: If the reasons for refraining from voting for Obama on the domestic front are myriad, they are even more so in the field of foreign policy, where gross incompetence has reached almost level of near-buffoonery

Read the rest – Into The Fray, If You Are Jewish……

Tags: Martin Sherman
Posted in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Economy, Elections 2012, Judaism, Mitt Romney, Politics, Progressives, Republican Party, Socialism, unemployment | 158 Comments »

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times – The cry of the ‘robbed cossack’

by Mojambo ( 119 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Israel, Media at August 6th, 2012 - 2:00 pm

A very long but worthwhile column regarding the increasingly ridiculous and strident columns by Thomas Friedman, the self described sage of all worldly things. Friedman seems to me to be trying to take advantage of his Jewish name in order to spread the most libelous accusations against Israel as if that would inoculate him of the charge of Jewish dual loyalty. I actually think he is the the opposite of a self-hater, he is a narcissist who is more concerned by what his non Jewish friends say to him at dinner parties about those “stubborn, stiff necked people in Tel Aviv”

by Martin Sherman

‘Robbed Cossack’: Hebrew idiom for a villain who complains about the wrongs (imaginary or not) done to him that he has done to others.

Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided
– Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) at the annual AIPAC conference, June 4, 2008

Congress maintains its commitment to relocating the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and urges the President, pursuant to the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995… to immediately begin the process of relocating the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem…. None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act may be available for the publication of any official government document which lists countries and their capital cities unless the publication identifies Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

– Section. 212 of the “Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2002 and 2003,” relating to “United States policy with respect to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” sponsored by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Delaware), cosponsor of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act.

[…]

Keep these excerpts in mind – their relevance will soon become evident.

The cry of the ‘robbed cossack’?

It is, of course, possible to conceive of more deplorable examples of shoddy and shallow journalism than Tom Friedman’s mendacious and misleading rant, titled, “Why not in Vegas?” against Mitt Romney’s visit to Jerusalem this week. However, I must confess, none springs readily to mind.

Friedman launches into his derogatory diatribe by accusing Romney of (gasp) fund-raising. Of course, coming from an Obamaphile, that is rich.

After all, while there may be many reasons for Obama’s victory over Sen. John McCain in 2008, clearly far from the least significant among them was Obama’s massive funding advantage, outdoing his rival by a ratio of over 3:1 – and half-a-billion dollars – after opting out of the public funding option, despite a pledge not to.

[…]

People in glass houses

Friedman seems to be particularly upset by the support of Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson for Romney.

He attempts to wax sarcastic: “Since the whole trip was not about learning anything but about how to satisfy the political whims of the right-wing, super pro- Bibi Netanyahu, American Jewish casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, why didn’t they just do the whole thing in Las Vegas? “I mean, it was all about how big a jackpot of donations Adelson would shower on the Romney campaign in return.

Vegas would have been so much more appropriate than Jerusalem.

“They could have constructed a plastic Wailing Wall and saved so much on gas.”

Putting aside the tone of misplaced contempt for a moment, one might get the impression that Obama lacks support from like-minded plutocrats such as the shadowy George Soros, who has donated heavily to Obama-philic causes.

So why the disdain? Or is it just that Friedman feels that political opponents have no right to their positions and, hence, all attempts to enlist resources to promote them are to be belittled and besmirched.

Obama has engaged in intensive efforts to raise funds abroad. According to one source, “Obama has out-raised [Romney] almost 3:1 from ‘off-shore donors.’” The Wall Street Journal reported that an “invitation for an August fund-raiser asked guests to join “Americans Abroad for Obama and special guest George Clooney for a reception in Geneva,” with dinner costing $20,000 a head, or $30,000 a couple.

The Hollywood Reporter also mentions the Clooney event, and gives details of Obama’s fund-raising efforts in… China.

[…]

So perhaps a plastic replica of the Great Wall of China in Hollywood would suffice?

Doubletalk, double standards

Friedman seems to have taken particular umbrage at Romney’s statement designating “Jerusalem [as] the capital of Israel.” He jeered that “it was all about money – how much Romney would abase himself by saying whatever the Israeli right wanted to hear.”

Really, Tom? Take a look at the introductory excerpts above, espoused by the president and vice president – not only designating Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but averring that it should remain undivided.

[…]

Indeed, in light of these unequivocal declarations as to the indivisible unity of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, would Friedman suggest that the Obama-Biden duo were “abasing themselves by saying whatever the Israeli Right wanted to hear” when they made them? Or were they “abasing themselves by saying whatever the Israeli Left (and the Palestinians) wanted to hear” when they went back on them?

Shades of Walt and Mearsheimer

Friedman continues his Stephen Walt- John Mearsheimer-compliant Judeophobic bluster that he began when he alleged that the standing ovations Netanyahu received during his 2011 address to the US Congress were “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

In his new article, he writes: “The main Israel lobby, AIPAC, has made itself the feared arbiter of which lawmakers are ‘pro’ and which are ‘anti-Israel’ and, therefore, who should get donations and who should not – and you have a situation in which there are almost no brakes, no red lights, around Israel coming from America anymore.”

So there you have it. According to Friedman, the Jews control US foreign policy and America is no more than a banana republic, where elected representatives are willing to sell their nation’s – and hence their constituents’ – interests to the highest bidder and can be bought by conniving Judeo-plutocrats – with hooked noses? What more could subscribers to the Walt-Mearsheimer doctrine ask for? But perhaps – just perhaps – Friedman, in his (il)liberal arrogance, is missing a point that Romney isn’t.

[…]

Clearly, the idea of placing a wedge between the US and Israel was a deliberate choice of the current Democratic administration. And it is not entirely implausible to surmise that – judging from the tenor of some of his previous articles – Friedman had a role to play in the conception of the “wedge/daylight policy.”

Having helped create the problem, he now bemoans the consequences.

[…]

‘You didn’t get there on your own’

Friedman’s bile and bias are evident in his attempt to belittle Israel’s technological achievements and entrepreneurial culture; and his chiding Romney for comparing it favorably with the Palestinian culture. Although he does acknowledge that “Israel today is an amazing beehive of innovation [and] something Jews should be proud of,” he attributes this – in the best “you didn’t get there on your own” tradition – in large measure to “an influx of Russian brainpower [and] massive US aid.”

But the Palestinians have received massive international aid for over two decades and have not been able to achieve anything approaching economic stability. So maybe it is a cultural thing, which by the way is why there was such an influx of Russian brain power.

[…]

Until Friedman realizes this, he will not be able to make any useful contribution to the discussion, beyond the fatuous, feckless and fraudulent offerings he has provided up to now.