Tom Friedman

I worry sometimes that the New York Times’ Tom Friedman is blowing a lot of his advantage as a columnist by spending too much time telling readers what should happen and not enough time telling them what’s happening. It’s always easier to write “If only” columns because you can ignore all the annoying reasons why people don’t behave according to your ideal. The resulting made-up people are invariably more boring than real people. If I read one more bit of made-up fantasy dialogue Friedman has written for a Middle East leader, I’m going to plotz. But this, from the bottom of today’s column, sure caught my eye:

Tom Friedman’s column in the Sunday New York Times begins the way all Tom Friedman columns do — Hi! I’ve got a Big Idea™ and I’m just going to type like a dervish until you catch up with me about halfway down the column! — but eventually it turns out to be… well, poignant, if you’re a Canadian reader. For Friedman is today urging President-Elect Obama “to increase the federal gasoline tax or impose an economy-wide carbon tax.”