Thomas Friedman: I'm a Silly Softhead and You Should Ignore Me

You know, if I only had to write twice a week, I'm pretty sure I could avoid sounding stupid at least one of those two times.

Not Thomas Friedman.

We need to use every diplomatic tool we have to shame Assad, his wife, Asma, his murderous brother Maher and every member of his cabinet or military whom we can identify as being involved in this gas attack. We need to bring their names before the United Nations Security Council for condemnation. We need to haul them before the International Criminal Court. We need to make them famous. We need to metaphorically put their pictures up in every post office in the world as people wanted for crimes against humanity.

Yes, there’s little chance of them being brought to justice now, but do not underestimate how much of a deterrent it can be for the world community to put the mark of Cain on their foreheads so they know that they and their families can never again travel anywhere except to North Korea, Iran and Vladimir Putin’s dacha. It might even lead some of Assad’s supporters to want to get rid of him and seek a political deal.

blahblahablahblah

i'm like totally phoning this in i wonder if anyone can tell

i gotta give it to myself, i'm pretty good at writing total nonsense which liberals are too intellectually insecure to call such

i'm pretty good at appeasing my bien pensant base without saying anything except to pander to them about easy choices and Diversity and the Marvels of Chinese Tyranny

i mean right here i'm writing a column pandering to liberals' desire to not intervene, but rather than speak to them like adults and say we're choosing between the evil of intervention and the evil of nonintervention, i'm spinning this ridiculous tale about "shaming" where we can have the world for no cost at all

but i know my audience... they just want to hear Serious You Guys Solar Energy is a Real Thing

good lord i'm gassier than nickel hot dogs...

mmm... hot dogs...

why don't restaurants offer spaghettio's with hot dogs..? i'd buy it...

i wonder what's on TLC... ooh hoarders marathon

i gotta summon up all my writerly powers now and Finish Strong, maybe with some em-dashes and a breezy parallelism

It is easy for Putin, China and Iran to denounce American bombing, but much harder for them to defend Syrian use of weapons of mass destruction, so let’s force them to choose. Best of all, a moral response — a shaming — can be an unlimited response, not a limited one.

Some of that might not be technically part of his column, but it seems implicit in what idiots would call "The Text," with capital letters, just like that.

posted by Ace at 05:12 PM

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