Churchill once said that the Hun is either at your feet or at your throat; one might say that the American liberal is either at your throat or begging for bipartisanship:
The Tea Party’s vision is narrow and uninspired. Americans want a plan to make America great again, and at some level they know that such a plan will require a hybrid politics — one that blends elements of both party’s instincts. And they will follow a president — they would even pay more taxes and give up more services
But like the Hun of Churchill's conception, the American liberal, with Thomas Friedman leading the charge, will once again someday be back at our throats. He does not believe in bipartisanship anymore than he believes in fossil fuels. Hamlet said, the problem Horatio is not in the stars but in ourselves, but Friedman says that the problem is not in the elitist statism of the Obama administration but it is that his phalanx of elitists have not offered the right plan:
It’s because the 40 percent of Americans in the middle who have determined our last two elections don’t see an integrated plan for nation-building at home that includes not only more spending but hard choices.
The Hun comes out inadvertently because the hard choices that Friedman would impose on Americans are hard only to principled conservatives not to elitist liberals:
We need to raise gasoline and carbon taxes to discourage their use and drive the creation of a new clean energy industry, while we cut payroll and corporate taxes to encourage employment and domestic investment.
How can one take this nostrum seriously? He wants to cut payroll and corporate taxes to encourage employment and investment and in the same breath he is willing to raise gasoline and carbon taxes which somehow will not damage employment and investment! The elitist is fundamentally a Hun and he will hold out the olive branch of conciliation only until he can turn it into the birch of taxes.
So Friedman is trying to get Obama to triangulate and save his administration. Friedman fears Obama will be Jimmy Carter rather than Bill Clinton. There is nothing nation saving in Friedman's advice, it is frankly elitist and certainly not bipartisan.
There is nothing that can save the Obama administration from the verdict of history except liberal historians. There is nothing that redeems this pathetic attempt by Thomas Friedman.
