Tom Friedman

ABC Touts Tom Friedman to Lobby for Taxes on Oil and Carbon
By Scott Whitlock | May 6, 2010 | 12:11 PM EDT

Good Morning America on Thursday again brought on Tom Friedman to lobby for taxes on carbon and oil. Talking to host George Stephanopoulos, the New York Times columnist urged Barack Obama to "use" the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico and push "a bill through the Senate."

Friedman discussed America getting off oil and argued, "Well, ultimately, it's going to require a price on carbon that will stimulate innovation in clean power technologies." He delicately mentioned forcing changes on businesses and taxpayers and touted that other countries "are putting in place, basically, these kind of carbon rules and taxes that give a very clear signal to business, where to invest."

Other than the occasional right-leaning point made by Bill O'Reilly, GMA's hosts don't often bring on conservative guests to promote lower taxes and less government regulation. Yet, Friedman is a favorite of the ABC program.

Delay of Cap & Trade a ‘Disaster’ and ‘Travesty’ Friedman Despairs, ‘Shame on Republicans’
By Brent Baker | April 25, 2010 | 1:30 PM EDT
Reacting to news the Obama administration wants to postpone a vote on “Cap and Trade” in favor of immigration reform, on Sunday’s Face the Nation New York Times columnist Tom Friedman despaired: “This is a disaster...This is a travesty. Basically, we were about to send the first bi-partisan legislation for radical move toward more green energy, more green jobs and putting a price on carbon...”

Now, he fretted, “in Beijing, they're high- fiving each other. ‘Oh, yeah, baby, this means the Americans are going to be paralyzed on green tech, okay, for another couple of years.’ China is already leading the world now in wind production, China’s already leading world in solar production.”

While he chastised Democrats and Obama for putting the “raw politics” of trying to save Harry Reid ahead of the energy bill, he saved his real disgust for how only one Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, was willing to help promote “green energy,” charging: “Shame on the Republican Party. There's one Republican for advancing green energy in this country? One Republican Senator dare step out?”
Couric on Obama: 'Better at Making Us Smarter than Making Us Angry,' 83% Back Obama
By Brent Baker | January 28, 2010 | 1:00 AM EST

Following President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, on CBS Katie Couric revealed her reading interests as she endorsed the take on Obama from a liberal New York Times columnist: “Well, as Tom Friedman said, 'he's better at making us smarter than making us angry.'” (Friedman's actual assertion in his January 27 column: “He is so much better at making us smarter than angrier.”)

Then, after the Republican response, Anthony Mason recited as relevant the very skewed findings of a CBS News/Knowledge Networks online poll only of those who watched Obama, nonetheless touting how 83 percent approve of Obama's “proposals made in his speech,” with disapproval from a piddling 17 percent. As evidence Obama “may have made up sound ground” with the public, Mason juxtaposed how for “shares your priorities for the country” Obama jumped to 70 percent for viewers of his speech compared to the 57 percent determined in an earlier national survey. (The online posting contends both numbers are just for those who watched.)

MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell Still In Favor of Obama Indoctrination
By Kyle Drennen | October 2, 2009 | 4:26 PM EDT
A week after aggressively defending school children in New Jersey literally singing Barack Obama’s praises, on MSNBC on Friday, anchor Norah O’Donnell once again expressed her support of the song and went after critics: “I think this is sort of a silly issue, I do, I’ll just say that, you know, and I’m not an ideologue. And I got hammered in the blogs for making that comment.”  

As NewsBusters’ Scott Whitlock reported on September 24, O’Donnell argued with conservative columist Tim Carney, seeing no problem with the disturbing song: “I mean, this is children. They're singing a song...If you can make your point again about why this is indoctrination, political indoctrination to praise your President...I remember certainly in elementary school when Ronald Reagan was President and we sent him jelly beans.”

On Friday, during MSNBC’s weekly New York Times Edition program, O’Donnell explained to liberal New York Times columnist Nick Kristof:
Nick, you know, there was – this was something that was on the Right that got a lot of play, which was these school students who were singing a song about President Barack Hussein Obama. It was during black history month, and those on the Right, in conservatives circles, have used that to say they’re now indoctrinating kids, essentially, in schools....I just wonder what it is then, when we can’t allow our children to praise a president or sing about a president, whether they’re a Republican or a Democrat or an independent or even people of different religions.
Katrina, Minneapolis Bridge Collapse? Reagan's Fault, Says NYT Critic
By Clay Waters | September 15, 2008 | 3:53 PM EDT

New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff's "Reflections: New Orleans and China" showed that he shared the same affliction as Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman -- gauging the success of the strong central power of Communist China by looking at its shining and efficient surface, without questioning its effect on the nation's unseen citizenry. For good measure, he even held Ronald Reagan responsible for both the devastation from Hurricane Katrina and last year's deadly Minneapolis bridge collapse.Ouroussoff wrote:

For Americans watching events unfold on television late last month, the arduous evacuation of New Orleans and the grandeur of the Olympic Games couldn't have made for a starker contrast.

However one feels about its other policies, the Chinese government is clearly not afraid to invest in the future of its cities. The array of architecture it created for the Beijing Olympics was only part of a mosaic of roads, bridges, tunnels, canals, subway lines and other projects that have transformed a medieval city of wood and brick into a modern metropolis overnight.

NYT's Tom Friedman on ABC: Slams McCain Energy Plan, Wants More Taxes
By Scott Whitlock | September 8, 2008 | 12:48 PM EDT

Diane Sawyer ABC "Good Morning America" on Monday featured liberal New York Times columnist Tom Friedman as an energy expert to "fact check" John McCain's policies on the subject and advocate for higher taxes. GMA co-host Diane Sawyer never referred to Friedman's economic policies as liberal, despite the fact that he repeatedly made assertions such as this: "But, you know, there's really no effective plan to make us energy independent without what I call a price signal, without either a carbon tax or a gasoline tax that's really going to shape the market in a different way."

Sawyer began the segment by noting both candidates have plans for energy independence. She then asked, "Are they going to achieve it? Do they mean it?" However, the ABC host didn't ask Friedman to "fact check" Obama's plan. Instead she simply recited the Democrat's plans for eliminating Mid East Oil. And while Friedman freely attacked McCain's policies, he responded to a clip of Obama talking about investing more money into alternative energy by, again, complaining about a lack of gasoline tax: "Unless we have a floor onto the price of gasoline that really keeps that behavior going, you can't throw enough money at this problem."

Friedman Bashes RNC Attendees for Chanting 'Drill, Baby, Drill'
By Noel Sheppard | September 7, 2008 | 8:39 PM EDT
During Rudy Giuliani's speech at the Republican National Convention last Wednesday, attendees were heard loudly chanting, "Drill, baby, drill"...and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman isn't happy about it.

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Friedman incorrectly asserted that folks in the world's major oil producing nations would be happy to hear that Americans want to produce more of their own oil, and equated the chant to people in the computer age shouting "IBM Selectric typewriters, IBM Selectric typewriters."

Before analyzing the stupidity of his position, here's the segment in question (video embedded right, relevant section at 1:45):