If there’s one thing New York Times columnist Tom Friedman likes more than name-dropping, it’s churning out puzzling metaphors.  Two of his book titles, The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat, illustrate this pastime of his— the former book comparing financial regulatory frameworks to computer software.  We doubt how helpful it is, though, to compare one complicated abstraction to another and expect the general reader to better understand global finance, but his books sell well.

After many rhetorical misses, Friedman finally makes a hit in contrasting today’s geopolitical problem children (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea).  Using a metaphor of pulleys and levers, Friedman divides these four countries into two groups: those who promise to “pull levers”, only to find the levers breaking off the wall (Afghanistan, Pakistan), and those who grope around with much fanfare only pretending to pull levers (Iran, North Korea).

Thomas Friedman at the New York Times condemns Thabo Mbeke’s defense of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.  The South African president has refused to apply strong pressure to the Zimbabwean autocrat and has also arranged for South Africa’s U.N. Security Council minister to vote against a resolution targeting sanctions at Mugabe and his ruling clique.  You would think that a South African president would be well aware of the usefulness of international pressure in removing odious regimes, especially since it was international pressure that led to the end of apartheid.

Friedman laments:

So let us now coin the Mbeki Rule: When whites persecute blacks, no amount of U.N. sanctions is too much. And when blacks persecute blacks, any amount of U.N. sanctions is too much.

Friedman’s cyncism is sadly true, but this particular criticism often goes unrecogznied.  The world narative, particularly on the Left, holds that it is the West—or rather, the whites of the West—who are responsible for all the world’s misery.  This view fails to account for much of the violence and mayhem in Africa that has occured since the sunset of European imperial rule.  It is time to change the narative lest we continue to excuse internecine violence and thuggery in poor countries.

Thomas Friedman in the NYT is back to his usual environomics finger wagging:

It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.”

Friedman forgets is that our democratically elected president is simply representing the wishes of the American people, who steadfastly demand cheap oil.  No candidate has offered to raise the gas tax because they know that to do so would be touching a third rail of politics, “elite opinion” be damned.

Friedman further laments the Bush administration:

The failure of Mr. Bush to fully mobilize the most powerful innovation engine in the world — the U.S. economy — to produce a scalable alternative to oil has helped to fuel the rise of a collection of petro-authoritarian states — from Russia to Venezuela to Iran — that are reshaping global politics in their own image.

Though I don’t doubt the wisdom of developing such industries, it will only be possible with higher gas prices, as the demand for alternative fuels will necessarily increase.    Unfortunately, high gas prices are politically unpopular.

Friedman may be right about what energy policy shifts are needed, but his opinions are not going to go over well at the polls.  Not everyone can afford a Prius, Tom.