The Hack Thirty

I actually thought about getting together with the Ropers to compile a list of the worst political columnists. I did a poll on a prior blog and Ann Coulter was the winner. Salon beat me and made the Hack Thirty list.

The Top Ten

Richard Cohen

Mark Halperin

Thomas Friedman

David Broder

Marty Peretz

Marc Thiessen

Jonah Goldberg

Maureen Dowd

Laura Ingraham

Peggy Noonan

Alex Pareene gives a summery to the lowlights to all of the thirty columnists

The Trouble With the Times

The key to understanding Thomas Friedman is that he is a buffoonish clown. His proposal of offering the "Bin Laden Scholars" scholarship program for Middle Eastern students is highly offense and unproductive. Any serious thinker would know that universities would be terrified being assiociated with any scholarship named after a man responsible for the murder of thousands. Offering free education to young Middle Easterners has positive merits. Friedman's brainstorm is flaky. Even coming from an auther whom wrote the factually inaccurate book The World Is Flat.

Friedman nearly tops the "Bin Laden Scholars" op-ed with his latest opus.

I have no idea who is going to win the Democratic presidential nomination, but lately I’ve been wondering whether, if it is Barack Obama, he might want to consider keeping Dick Cheney on as his vice president.

Friedman once was a serious Middle Eastern journalist. The time has come to put him out to pasture. A twenty year-old blogger can write better columns than this drivel. Friedman isn't pushing interesting ideas or so great wordsmith that can get any with faulty arguments.

The New York Times op-ed section is New Orleans after Katrina. There is one disaster after the other. Maureen Dowd compared Hillary Clinton to a dominatrix. David Brooks wrote a highly dishonest defense of Ronald Reagan's Philadelphia, Mississippi campaign kickoff. The town is famous for the murders of three civil rights activists. Racists legally used state rights to block segregation. T

The paper of record can do better than this. There are sensential that could make The Times op-eds pages relevant again. The talent pool at The American Prospect and within the paper is a good place to start looking for replacements. The newest columnist is John Tierney. His writing is so bad it's good. Not qualities that should apply to Murderers' Row.

“When you hear politicians calling you an addict and warning that you'll be cut off, try my plan for energy independence…. After you fill up your tank, twist the rear-view mirror so you can gaze at yourself. Repeat these words: ‘I'm good enough, I'm rich enough, and doggone it, people in the Middle East like my money.’"

The above quoted text is reason why fewer people read newspaper op-ed sections.

Write A Caption: Thomas Friedman Edition

The World Is Tom Friedman Predictions

Lindsey Graham channeled his inner-Thomas Friedman a month ago.

Within the next weeks, not months, there will be a major breakthrough on the benchmarks regarding political reconciliation. And after the last two weeks of being a reservist, you could see Sunnis and Shia and Kurds taking a second look at Iraq.

Graham's prediction are as bad as my Phillies/Red Sox World Series picks. In my defense, my predictions do not effect the lives of U.S. military personal and Iraqi civilians. Contrary to what wingnuts think, there are Iraqis that want the violence to end.

Thomas Friedman's Iraq Greatest Hits

There are several quotes from Thomas Friedman from this Iraq timeline of pundits and government officials telling us how wonderful Iraq will be if we just give it more time. I picked Friedman because he maybe the most stupid man on the planet.

Friedman has a history of stating that the next few months will be the turning point for Iraq. Once that deadline has past, Friedman makes a new deadline. He then proclaims 6 more months are needed in Iraq before we will know how the war will turn out. Repaet cycle.

"It might be over in six months."

Thomas Friedman
June 2004

"The next six months in Iraq... are the most important... "

Thomas Friedman
November 2003

"...in the next six to nine months..."

Thomas Friedman
October 2004

"Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months."

Thomas Friedman
November 2004

"We're in a six-month window here..."

Thomas Friedman
September 2005

"We're going to know after six to nine months..."

Thomas Friedman
January 2006

"The next six to nine months are going to tell..."

Thomas Friedman
March 2006

"It's going to be decided in the next weeks or months..."

Thomas Friedman
April 2006

"We're going to find out... in the next year to six months."

Thomas Friedman
May 2006

Quote of the Day

Kevin Drum on the rumor that the New York Times is going to end TimesSelect. Only paid subscribers have been able to read the columnists online.

Can this be true? It would sure be nice to once again be able to mock Tom Friedman.....

Amen, brother.

Personally, I miss the unintentional comedy writing of John Tierney.

But Doggone It, the New York Times Columnist Love Paint Thinner

Greg Mitchell has an op-ed ripping into New York Times columnist John Tierney. He pulls a piece of Tierney's punditry that is truly priceless.

“When something finally comes along that's cheaper and more reliable than oil, no national energy plan will be necessary. Capitalists will be ready to sell it to eager American drivers. For now, the best strategy is to buy gasoline and stop worrying that it's sinful or dangerous.

“When you hear politicians calling you an addict and warning that you'll be cut off, try my plan for energy independence…. After you fill up your tank, twist the rear-view mirror so you can gaze at yourself. Repeat these words: ‘I'm good enough, I'm rich enough, and doggone it, people in the Middle East like my money.’"

When conservatives resort to quoting Stuart Smalley then you know we have an energy crisis.

The obvious problem is that Tierney refuses to criticize Republicans. For all of George Will's and Andrew Sullivan's faults, they can drop the hammer on a Trent Lott. Tierney is incapable of such a task.

In Tierney's defense, he still hasn't written anything as nutty as Thomas Friedman's brain fart idea for Osama bin Laden scholarships.

Maybe we could even call them the "Bin Laden Scholars." I sort of like the idea of bin Laden sitting in a dark cave somewhere, composing his latest nutty video message, and suddenly learning that all the reward money we were devoting to killing him will go instead to killing his ideas - and to bringing young Arabs and Muslims closer to America rather than pushing them farther away.

There isn't one politician in this country who would advocate for "Bin Laden Scholarship."

The funniest thing is people are paying $50 dollars a year for this punditry.