[federalist] In Tom Friedman's world, a Cabinet officer's faithful execution of a president's policies after private disagreement is both 'cowardly' and 'slimy,' not to mention cause for eternal damnation.
The Dictator-Loving Friedman has lost his shit mind
In 42-plus years of analyzing lawyers' briefs, I have gained some experience in spotting written advocacy that resorts to a variety of mechanisms to camouflage a weak argument. Sometimes authors use personal attacks and inflammatory but baseless accusations to cover up the weakness of their argument.
So it is with political journalists and advocates (an overlapping set, to be sure). Tom Friedman, The New York Times’ resident "intellectual" foreign affairs columnist, demonstrates this technique in spades in his recent unhinged personal attack on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for not publicly disagreeing with President Trump's decision to recall Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovich.
Friedman's charge is that Pompeo's failure to voice his public disagreement with Trump's decision shows that even though Pompeo finished No. 1 in his class at West Point ‐ a composite of academic, leadership, and physical fitness rankings ‐ "he must have flunked all his courses on ethics and leadership." Friedman lards up his baseless argument with inflammatory, red-meat personal attacks that can fairly be described as sophomoric, in the sense that they are more typical of something written by an inexperienced but passionate youth, rather than a serious man.
Thus, Friedman's analysis is that Pompeo is "cowardly" and "slimy," he must have "failed or skipped" all West Point's classes on ethics and leadership, and his failure to behave as Friedman would demand is "one of the most shameful things I have ever seen in 40 years of covering U.S. diplomacy." He has "the mark of Cain on his forehead" and it "will not wash off." Continuing his biblical references, Friedman assures us it is really a "simple" matter: Pompeo will "lose his soul."
Well, what on Earth is the basis for damning Pompeo's soul to hell? It is this, in Friedman's words:
Though he reportedly argued privately to the president to keep Yovanovitch in place, Pompeo faithfully executed Trump's order without uttering a word to defend his ambassador's reputation in public.
In the Friedman world, a Cabinet officer's faithful execution of a president's policies after private disagreement is both "cowardly" and "slimy," not to mention cause for eternal damnation. |