"Mind you, I am not at all against a negotiated solution. Indeed, from the beginning of this war I have made the point..."

"... that it will end only with a 'dirty deal.' But it cannot be a filthy deal, and the Trump plan is what history will call a filthy deal.... As my Times colleague David Sanger observed in his analysis of the plan’s content: 'Many of the 28 points in the proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan offered by the White House read like they had been drafted in the Kremlin. They reflect almost all Mr. Putin’s maximalist demands.'... What would an acceptable dirty deal look like? It would freeze the forces in place, but never formally cede any seized Ukrainian territory. It would insist that European security forces, backed by U.S. logistics, be stationed along the cease-fire line as a symbolic tripwire against any Russian re-invasion. It would require Russia to pay a significant amount of money to cover all the carnage it has inflicted on Ukraine...."

Writes Thomas Friedman, in "Trump’s Neville Chamberlain Prize" (NYT).

Late last night, this went up at the NY Post: "Marco Rubio told US senators that Ukraine peace plan was not America’s — but a ‘leaked’ Russian ‘wish list.'" 

Republican Senator Mike Rounds is quoted at the Post: "[Rubio] made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives. It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan. It is a proposal that was received, and as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it — and we did not release it. It was leaked."

ADDED: "US senators say Rubio told them Trump’s Ukraine peace plan is Russia’s ‘wish list’" (AP).

Let's talk about the home page of The New York Times.

As it looks right now:

1. I had thought the Jeffrey Epstein story was running out of energy, but here it is back on the front page and in the top spot. But it's a real estate story: "A Look Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan Lair." As if we're into his mystique!

2. Sharing the top of the page is "How to Break Free From Your Phone" — a generic self-help topic, not news at all. The pretty blue of the sky in the illustration lines up with the blue sky in Jeffrey Epstein's stairwell. The legs of the phoneless woman in the grass chime with the legs of the stairwell woman. Both women grip something tubular — one, a flower stem and the other, a rope. We are reminded that Jeffrey hanged himself — reminded whether he did it or not. 

3. 2 things to angst over: declining school enrollment and a nuclear reactor on the moon.

4. Something that isn't even vaguely surprising — an old bookshelf contained a particular old book. It might be worth $20,000. Who cares!? This is like the news that somebody won the lottery. The winning ticket is rare, but you know it's in the great mass of tickets, and somebody found it.

5. Suddenly, it's time to talk about your intestines. That seems to scream: slow news day.

6. At last, the name Trump appears. Tariff business. The ongoing story. The photo is of immigrants — caption (outside of my screen shot): "Trump’s New Tactic to Separate Immigrant Families."

7. And then, there's Thomas Friedman, supplying the overarching and very high-level-abstract theme: "The America We Knew Is Rapidly Slipping Away." It begins: "Of all the terrible things Donald Trump has said and done as president, the most dangerous one just happened...."

***

Strangely low-level anxiety wafts up from the usual jumble of well-worn topics.

"... Israel’s last two major wars... were both started by nonstate actors backed by Iran — Hezbollah from Lebanon in 2006 and Hamas from Gaza now — after Israel had withdrawn from their territories."

"And they both began with bold border-crossing assaults — Hezbollah killing three and kidnapping two Israeli soldiers in 2006 and Hamas brutally killing more than 1,300 and abducting some 150 Israeli civilians, including older people, babies and toddlers, in addition to soldiers. That similarity is not a coincidence. Both assaults were designed to challenge emerging trends in the Arab world of accepting Israel’s existence in the region. And most critically, the result of these surprise, deadly attacks across relatively stable borders was that they drove Israel crazy.... Since 2006, the Israel-Lebanon border has been relatively stable and quiet.... And while Israel did take a hit in terms of its global image because of the carnage it inflicted in Beirut, it was not nearly as isolated in the world or the Middle East over the short term or long run as Hezbollah had hoped. Hamas must have missed that lesson...."

Writes Thomas Friedman, in "Why Israel Is Acting This Way" (NYT).

If Friedman's use of the word crazy bothers you, you should read the whole column. He uses the word crazy (or a variation on crazy) 10 times.

As Friedman imagines it, Hamas, seeing Israel's increased acceptance in the Arab world, thought: "OK, Jews,

"Given the stakes, Biden needs to make the case... why [Kamala] Harris is the best choice to succeed him, should he not be able to complete his [second] term...."

"One thing Biden might consider is putting Harris in charge of ensuring that America’s transition to the age of artificial intelligence works to strengthen communities and the middle class. It is a big theme that could take her all over the country. I wrote a column more than two years ago suggesting that Biden make Harris 'his de facto secretary of rural development, in charge of closing the opportunity gap, the connectivity gap, the learning gap, the start-up gap — and the anger and alienation gap — between rural America and the rest of the country.' It would have been a substantive challenge and would have enabled her and the administration to build bridges to rural Republicans. Never happened. I am terrified of going into this election with a Democratic ticket that gives moderate Republicans and independents — who are desperate for an alternative to Trump — any excuse to gravitate back to him...."

Writes Thomas Friedman in "Why Kamala Harris Matters So Much in 2024" (NYT).

Unlike the commenters over there, Friedman doesn't consider replacing Harris. He's just talking about giving her different assignments from the very important ones she already has. His suggested assignments are blurrily described. We are entering the "age of artificial intelligence," but she would somehow "ensure" that it "works to strengthen communities and the middle class." Somehow that vague task — what are "communities"?  — would build up her reputation. Why? Because she could travel "all over the country" with "a big theme." Friedman likens this assignment to the one he recommended 2 years ago — "rural development." Somehow he sees her as suited to pull along people who are left behind. 

That sounds hopeless, but I don't blame him for avoiding the subject of replacing her as the VP candidate. The Democrats can't humiliate her. She's the first black VP and the first woman VP, and they can’t say she didn't do well enough. Unthinkable. 

"U.S. officials are starting to grumble about Ukraine and possible corruption. After months of having Americans bake Ukraine flag cupcakes..."

"... and fly Ukraine’s colors outside our houses, there’s a bit of hedging going on now. The government seems to be soft-rolling it, like in this Thomas Friedman piece: 'Privately, U.S. officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine’s leadership than they are letting on. There is deep mistrust between the White House and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine—considerably more than has been reported.' This is, after all, a former Soviet republic full of rent seekers and minigarchs, and you don’t become president without fraternizing with those people, and those people, well, they don’t just go away once you’re in power, and all the Vogue covers in the world can’t whitewash that."

Writes Nellie Bowles at Common Sense, reviewing the top stories in her column called "TGIF." She's also got this, about Afghanistan:

"Should a journalist — particularly one as distinguished and influential as [Thomas] Friedman — disclose his direct financial support of those he’s writing about?"

"The question is an unlikely twist on an issue that has occasionally ensnared other journalists. News organizations typically prohibit reporters and columnists from taking anything of value from those they write about, lest it corrupt or compromise what they write and report. The rules usually make no distinction between news reporters and opinion columnists, such as Friedman, the latter of whom are allowed to advocate for a cause or a point of view. But giving money, particularly without notifying readers, is rarely addressed."

 From "Thomas Friedman’s columns prompt a different kind of ethical question for the New York Times" (WaPo). Friedman has written favorably about Conservation International in many of his columns in the NYT, and his family foundation has donated $5.9 million to it over the years. 

Is this a problem, and what is the agenda of the people who are pushing the notion that this is problem? WaPo cites a "San Francisco community organizer named Michael Petrelis" who brought up this issue about Friedman at a NYT shareholder meeting:

"There’s one thing about the people on the Trump team that I almost admire: When they do blurt out the truth, they really tell you the truth..."

"... in a way that’s so raw you’re left asking, 'Did they really say that out loud?' That was certainly my thought when Kellyanne Conway declared last week, 'The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.' The better it is? How could anyone be 'better' in America if we have more chaos, anarchy, vandalism and violence? It couldn’t be better — except for one man: Donald Trump."

Wait a minute! Isn't it also better for the people who are doing the chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence? Why are they doing it otherwise — doing it for months on end? It must be their idea of better, and they are in control of it, their own actions. But you don't talk to them. I wonder why not. It's so much easier to sit back and listen to things said by Trumpers, things that, of course, always inspire outrage... except to the extent that you can toy with edginess by saying almost admire the balls.

The quote above is from NYT columnist Thomas A. Friedman, in "For Biden to Win, Listen to Minneapolis/Not everyone is for defunding the police. Especially those in communities that would be most affected."

Friedman proceeds to do the same thing Kellyanne did: Look at the chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence and jump right to what apparently matters most — how it affects the presidential candidate you care about.

So, Joe Biden has a real challenge on his hands. To mobilize the majority he needs to credibly assure enough voters that he takes both the violence seriously and its social, policing and economic roots seriously. His “looting is not protesting” speech in Pittsburgh on Monday was a good start....

Key word: "start." Biden did the easy and obvious part, but he didn't do anything bold or courageous or difficult. He didn't demonstrate leadership. Indeed, he only read a text off a teleprompter. He won't submit to questioning. He has not had to show us one thought dredged up directly from his own head.  Friedman goes on to offer some nuanced notions about practical police reform that Biden could use to progress from "good start" to something of real substance.

[Martin Luther King Jr.] decried riots as “self-defeating,” but he also pointed out that “a riot is the language of the unheard..." Economic progress and social justice, King argued, “are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” Which is why Biden, if he frames it right, can be the real “law and order” candidate in this election. Because he’s not for disbanding the police, but for improving them — which is how you build respect for the law from everyone — and because Biden knows that sustainable order can only come from a president who wants to build healthy and just communities, not from a president who thinks it’s “better” for him politically if they’re torn apart.

Trump wants "healthy and just communities" too, and Biden wants to do what's better for him politically too. I'm so tired of that template — hating Trump and puffing up Biden. Let's see Biden step up and show some real leadership and intellectual heft. Let's see him submit serious questioning and cruelly neutral criticism. So far, he won't do it, and the media are facilitating his evasion of any real test. I'm beyond fed up with this treatment of Biden and Trump.

"It’s a geopolitical earthquake."

"Just go down the scorecard, and you see how this deal affects every major party in the region — with those in the pro-American, pro-moderate Islam, pro-ending-the-conflict-with-Israel-once-and-for-all camp benefiting the most and those in the radical pro-Iran, anti-American, pro-Islamist permanent-struggle-with-Israel camp all becoming more isolated and left behind.... It was Trump’s peace plan drawn up by Jared Kushner, and their willingness to stick with it, that actually created the raw material for this breakthrough.... This deal will certainly encourage the other gulf sheikhdoms — Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — all of which have had covert and overt business and intelligence dealings with Israel, to follow the Emirates’ lead. They will not want to let the U.A.E. have a leg up in being able to marry its financial capital with Israel’s cybertechnology, agriculture technology and health care technology, with the potential to make both countries stronger and more prosperous. Three other big winners here are: 1) King Abdullah of Jordan. He feared that Israeli annexation would energize efforts to turn Jordan into the Palestinian state. That threat is for the moment defused. 2) The American Jewish community. If Israel had annexed part of the West Bank, it would have divided every synagogue and Jewish community in America, between hard-line annexationists and liberal anti-annexationists. This was a looming disaster. Gone for now. And 3) Joe Biden. Biden, if he succeeds Trump, will not have to worry about the thorny issue of annexation, and he should have a much stronger pro-American alliance in the region to work with. The big geopolitical losers are Iran and all of its proxies: Hezbollah, the Iraqi militias, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis in Yemen and Turkey...."

From "A Geopolitical Earthquake Just Hit the Mideast/The Israel-United Arab Emirates deal will be felt throughout the region" by Thomas Friedman (NYT).

I knew this was coming, and I'm expecting a lot more of this: "Let’s Scrap the Presidential Debates."

That particular example is by Elizabeth Drew and appears in the NYT today. I haven't read this yet, but I anticipate that it will not admit to a motivation to shield Biden from a test of his mental acuity:

The debates have never made sense as a test for presidential leadership. In fact, one could argue that they reward precisely the opposite of what we want in a president. When we were serious about the presidency, we wanted intelligence, thoughtfulness, knowledge, empathy and, to be sure, likability. It should also without saying, dignity....

This, by the way, isn’t written out of any concern that Donald Trump will prevail over Joe Biden in the debates; Mr. Biden has done just fine in a long string of such contests. The point is that “winning” a debate, however assessed, should be irrelevant, as are the debates themselves....

Ridiculous. How can you read that and not laugh? Not written out of any concern that Trump will do better than Biden?!

I am truly disgusted by this effort help Biden avoid debating. I've been writing about this for a while. Back on June 25th, I showed you a WaPo column by Karen Tumulty, "It’s time to rethink the presidential debates" and I said I expected "a push to eliminate the debates."

On July 8, I wrote, "The effort to rescue Biden from the demand to debate continues apace." That was based on a Thomas Friedman column, "Biden Should Not Debate Trump Unless …/Here are two conditions the Democrat should set." I said "It's not an outright argument to keep Biden out of the debates, but that's where it's headed." And: "[W]e need to see Joe perform in real time, on his feet, intensely challenged. He cannot weasel out."

The effort to rescue Biden from the demand to debate continues apace.

I was just talking about this a couple weeks ago, when WaPo had a column "It’s time to rethink the presidential debates." The columnist, I said, was "only proposing that the debates take place in a TV studio with no audience, but I expect to see a push to eliminate the debates. Not campaigning has been working well for Biden, and not debating is another step in the do-nothing game. Will he look worse doing the debate or worse avoiding the debate? I think the press will do what it can to make him look especially principled, lofty, and judicious as he declines to appear in the presence of the orange monster."

And now we've got Thomas Friedman in the NYT, with "Biden Should Not Debate Trump Unless …/Here are two conditions the Democrat should set." It's not an outright argument to keep Biden out of the debates, but that's where it's headed. Friedman begins with his "worry":

I worry about Joe Biden debating Donald Trump. He should do it only under two conditions. Otherwise, he’s giving Trump unfair advantages.

The first condition has nothing to do with the nature of the debate. It's just a demand that Trump release his tax returns, so that just seems like generating an excuse not to debate. Friedman tries to make this demand relate to the debate by saying that Biden has released his tax returns and that was  "gifting Trump something he can attack." It's not a level playing field, you see.

The second condition is a ridiculous proposal — "a real-time fact-checking team approved by both candidates be hired by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates." Friedman imagines that these beings would — "10 minutes before the scheduled conclusion of the debate this team report on any misleading statements, phony numbers or outright lies either candidate had uttered. That way no one in that massive television audience can go away easily misled."

Don't let people be "easily misled" when they can be difficultly misled. Bring on the experts! And make them work under breakneck pressure and announce truths before the deadline.

"There are only different hellish ways to adapt to a pandemic and save both lives and livelihoods. I raise Sweden..."

"... not because I think it has found the magic balance — it is way too soon to tell — but because I think we should be debating all the different ways and costs of acquiring immunity. When I look across America, though, and see governors partly lifting lockdowns — because they feel their people just can’t take it anymore for economic or psychological reasons, even though their populations have little or no immunity — I worry we may end up developing more herd immunity but in a painful, deadly, costly, uncoordinated way that still leaves room for the coronavirus to strike hard again and overwhelm hospitals.... Herd immunity 'has historically been nature’s way of ending pandemics,' added Dr. David Katz, the public health physician.... 'We need to bend with her forces...' That means a designed strategy, based on risk profiles, of phasing back to work those least vulnerable, so we gradually cultivate the protection of herd immunity — 'while concentrating our health services and social services on protecting those most vulnerable' until we can sound the all-clear."

From "Is Sweden Doing It Right?/The Swedes aren’t battling the coronavirus with broad lockdowns" by Thomas Friedman (in the NYT).

"Please, Democrats, don’t tell me you need Sanders’s big, ill-thought-through, revolutionary grand schemes to get inspired and mobilized for this election."

"You want a revolution? I’ll give you a revolution: four more years of Donald Trump, unencumbered by the need to get re-elected. That will be a revolution!...  [You can win] by not only talking about how to redivide the pie — which we need to do — but by also talking about how to grow the pie, how to create more taxpayers and how to inspire more innovators. Ours is a capitalist country.... I was glad to see candidates with this kind of message, like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, trending better in Iowa and New Hampshire.... But there is one candidate on the Democratic side who not only has a track record of supporting all those issues but also has the resources to build a machine big enough to take on the Trump machine...  This candidate is not cuddly.... He’s made mistakes, especially around stop-and-frisk policing in New York City.... His mistakes, though, have to be weighed against a record of courageously speaking out and devoting enormous personal resources to virtually every progressive cause — gun control, abortion rights, climate change, Planned Parenthood, education reform for predominantly minority schools, affordable housing, income inequality and tax reform.... In an age when political extremists go all the way, and moderates tend to just go away, Bloomberg has the right stuff — a moderate progressive with a heart of gold but the toughness of a rattlesnake...."

From "Paging Michael Bloomberg/Democrats need to nominate the right person to prevent Trump from winning a second term" by Thomas L. Friedman (NYT).

I wonder how Democratic and independent moderates who have watched Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg fight their way to the front, with endless travel and events and debate, will feel about shunting them aside and embracing the latecomer who's using his vast wealth to barge to the front without all that trouble. I myself am a moderate independent, but I'm not as upset with Trump as the Democrats continually tell me I should be.

There was a big attack on Bloomberg yesterday, with the release of audio recordings of his harsh talk about the need to stop and frisk young black men. I keep hearing questioning whether black people will vote for Pete Buttigieg, but what's the word on whether black people will vote for Bloomberg? The Daily Beast has "Black Voters Turn to Mike Bloomberg/His belated and convenient stop-and-frisk mea culpa might be good enough for voters concerned with beating Trump, and protecting the fraught gains of the past half-century" by Christina Greer (a polisci professor who specializes in "black ethnic politics").

I have spoken to three black NYC political operatives who are quietly thinking about joining the campaign, which is gaining momentum, hiring nationwide, and paying top dollar. These aren’t mercenaries but self-defined pragmatic progressives who believe Bloomberg has the best chance at an electoral victory against Trump in November. I have spoken to a friend who says his black fraternity’s message boards—full of college-educated black men of diverse financial backgrounds, in various professional sectors, living in towns and cities across the country—are full of favorable talk about Bloomberg....

Black voters are strategic voters.... Candidates like Bernie Sanders propose blowing up the ship, but it is black voters who built the ship, as wayward as it may be. Joe Biden presented a more moderate vision... but his promise that he can beat Trump has been sorely tested by the struggles of his campaign so far. Other moderates, like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, are viewed as out of touch by many black voters...

I'm struck to see the phrase "like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg" in this column because it was also in the Friedman column, and I almost took the trouble to make fun of it when I saw it the first time. Obviously, the column writers don't mean candidates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. They mean Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. It's sloppy writing, but when I see it twice, in such similar columns, I feel as though the writers are working off the same talking points memo.

"... President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are essentially the same person... both men utterly without shame, backed by parties utterly without spine, protected by big media outlets utterly without integrity."

"They are both funded by a Las Vegas casino magnate, Sheldon Adelson. They are both making support for Israel a 'Republican' cause — no longer a bipartisan one. And they each could shoot an innocent man in broad daylight in the middle of Fifth Avenue and their supporters would say the victim had it coming. As a result, they are each free to cross red lines that their predecessors never dared to. Which is why I believe that four more years of Netanyahu, which is almost certain after Israel’s election on Tuesday, and six more years of Trump, which is a real possibility, will hasten the emergence of an America and an Israel where respect for civility, democracy, an independent judiciary and independent media are no longer examples for others to follow.... Both men have no close friends. The one major difference between them is that Bibi is very smart, an avid reader and a deft tactician in managing relations with Israel’s neighbors and big powers, such as America, Russia, India and China. Trump is clever but probably has not read a book in years.... Neither man is interested in being a leader for all their people....  Bibi’s strategy was to demonize Israeli Arabs, and Trump’s was to demonize Muslims and Mexicans and immigrants from what he called 'shithole' countries. Both men have rebuilt their parties around themselves and their personal politics, and both believe that as long as they can hold their bases by stoking enough fear and cultural division, they can win — and they’re willing to sacrifice any values or norms to do so."

Writes Thomas Friedman — he's not "stoking... fear and cultural division," is he? — in The New York Times.

"Could we have our first four-party election in 2020 — with candidates from the Donald Trump far right, the old G.O.P. center right, the Joe Biden center left and the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez far left all squaring off, as the deepening divides within our two big parties simply can’t be papered over any longer?"

Asks Thomas Friedman (NYT).

It's a good question in terms of attention-getting, but substantively, it's silly. Parties have often had wings, and it's not that special that the wings are pretty far apart. I'm thinking of the 1960s, for example.

Everyone's such a drama queen these days.

3 things in today's NYT show what I think is a realization that the talk of impeachment has gone too far and endangers the liberal agenda.

1. "For Trump's Defenders, White House Turmoil Is Politics as Usual":

But for many Americans, including President Donald Trump’s staunchest supporters, the "crisis in Washington" is... the latest egregious example of mainstream media bias and of Washington insiders desperate to preserve their status taking revenge on the New York celebrity businessman....

"This is what I expected," said Jeff Klusmeier, an insurance agent in Louisville, Kentucky. "I expected the media to attack Trump. I expected the Democrats to attack him and call for impeachment. So it's par for the course for me."...

"The overwhelming majority of conservatives and Republicans believe that whatever you may think of Donald Trump, this is clearly being driven by many quarters of the media that chose sides in the election and were very upfront about it and haven't changed," Republican consultant Keith Appell told Reuters.

2. "How Impeachment Could Help the G.O.P., Not the Democrats" — a heading for letters to the editor responding to a column by Thomas L. Friedman recommending that Democrats give up on the idea of impeaching Donald Trump. One reader says that Republicans might decide it's in their interest to replace Trump with Pence, "who is truly one of their own, would be the best possible way to get their agenda back on track." Another points out that Pence is "a sane, mentally stable, true conservative" who would be hard to run against in 2018.

3. Most significantly: "Democratic Leaders Try to Slow Calls to Impeach Trump."

“No one ought to, in my view, rush to embrace the most extraordinary remedy that involves the removal of the president from office,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the sober-minded senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. He warned that Democrats should not let their actions “be perceived as an effort to nullify the election by other means.”...

The demands of the radicalized party base are being amplified by growing calls from a series of Democratic candidates for statewide office who, in an effort to outflank their primary rivals, have started clamoring for Mr. Trump’s impeachment....

Most congressional Democrats... [fear] the expectations of their base... which are outrunning what is feasible as long as Republicans control both chambers of Congress. The fear, Democratic officials say, is that they will invite the sort of backlash from their base that Republicans got for overpromising about what was possible while President Barack Obama was in office....

Party strategists fear that Democrats might sacrifice the moral and political high ground by appearing too eager... [and] overplaying their hand.

"It is not working. President Obama’s slow-but-steady strategy to defeat the Islamic State..."

"... is clawing back a little territory in Syria and Iraq but is doing nothing to dent the charismatic appeal of the militant group, disrupt its propaganda or prevent it from killing Europeans.... Since the Paris attack, Obama has insisted that an anti-Islamic State coalition with European and other allies is getting the job done. More than 20 percent of the group’s territory has been recaptured. The president has suggested that more radical military action to crush the militants — essentially the deployment of infantry — would drag the United States into another Middle Eastern war and increase the appeal of the Islamic State. His argument has been: Defeating the Islamic State is militarily feasible, but then what? This is a very high-risk policy — too high in my view. It allows the Islamic State to strut its pure evil in and from Raqqa. The Obama approach posits that the Islamic State can be beaten before European and American societies are undermined.... But today at least the West’s ponderous wait-them-out approach to the murderous fanatics of the caliphate looks like capitulation."

Writes Roger Cohen, a NYT columnist. And another NYT columnist made a similar move. Here's Thomas L. Friedman:

Obama’s primary goal seems to be to get out of office being able to say that he had shrunk America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, prevented our involvement on the ground in Syria and Libya, and taught Americans the limits of our ability to fix things we don’t understand, in countries whose leaders we don’t trust, whose fates do not impact us as much as they once did.... Initially, I thought Obama made the right call on Syria. But today the millions of refugees driven out of Syria — plus the economic migrants now flooding out of Africa through Libya after the utterly botched Obama-NATO operation there — is destabilizing the European Union..... Unfortunately, Obama seems so obsessed with not being George W. Bush in the Middle East that he has stopped thinking about how to be Barack Obama....

The strong horse.

"Fighters abandoning al-Qaeda affiliates to join Islamic State, U.S. officials say."

U.S. officials attribute the Islamic State’s rapid emergence to factors both psychological and tactical. Its core group of fighters honed their skills against the armies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the United States when it occupied Iraq. The group has used raids and ransoms to stockpile weapons and cash. And its merciless reputation triggered rampant defections among Sunni members of Iraq’s security forces already disenchanted with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

The post title refers to the famous bin Laden quote: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse." Looking for a link for that, I ran across this New Yorker piece making fun of Thomas Friedman for saying:

No one ever said it better than Osama bin Laden: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse."

The humorist, John Kenney, has 8 examples of "it" not being said "better," e.g.:

Let’s say you see a kitten. Fine, make it two kittens. Let’s say you see two kittens. One’s nimble and fast and cute. The other one is dead. My experience is that people—and by people I mean children—by nature go for the live kitten. They see strength in the live kitten. Also, who wants a dead kitten?

When people see a frightening news story and a silly humor piece, by nature, they will not laugh at the humor piece.

The NYT's Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman made me want to rail against listicles that are not in list form, but instead I'm going to give you my proposal to avoid what Krugman warns are going to be "terrible" consequences.

"There are three things we know about man-made global warming. First, the consequences will be terrible if we don’t take quick action to limit carbon emissions."

So begins Paul Krugman, in a column titled "Interests, Ideology and Climate," and I was going to complain about NYT columns that hook us with the announcement that there's a list to follow but then the list isn't list-y enough. It doesn't pop with numbers and boldface and the other format conventions of the genre known as listicle.

But in fact, Krugman gets the second and third item out in the next 2 sentences: "Second, in pure economic terms the required action shouldn’t be hard to take: emission controls, done right, would probably slow economic growth, but not by much. Third, the politics of action are nonetheless very difficult."

So, good enough. It's not like I'm a fan of listicles. It's just that I'm annoyed by the invitation to a listicle that utterly buries the items, as exemplified by Thomas Friedman's new column "5 Principles for Iraq." Try finding the five items: "the first is... The second principle for me derives from... Principle No. 3... Fourth:... Finally...." He doesn't even say "5" or "Fifth," just "Finally"!

Is that supposed to feel erudite? Anyway, there's some interesting material in there, like, "in Iraq today, my enemy’s enemy is my enemy," which means what you think it means: Sunnis and Shiites killing each other is good news. Or, no, he can't say that. He says Sunni nor Shiite leaders are bad. And it's because they don't share our values. They are not "inclusive." The leaders are not inclusive, that is.

So enough with the not-quite-listicles bugaboo. I'm going to take Krugman's first thing absolutely seriously. We need "quick action to limit carbon emissions." Here's my proposal: Everyone who cares about man-made global warming should abstain from air travel. Look at this chart, from a 2013 article titled "Your Biggest Carbon Sin May Be Air Travel":



Sin! That's a heavy-handed word, but once you know the facts, if you are certain (as Paul Krugman is) of the calamity that is man-made global warming, it is a sin to continue to travel by air. I'm using moral suasion here, but many of those who believe as Krugman does support government intervention in markets, and it would be easy to propose taxes on air travel. How about extremely heavy taxes, used to support much better roads for the cars and buses we should be using?

Why am I saying we should be using cars and buses? Because cars and buses are what get us to work and through the errands of daily life in and around where we live. Airplanes are for those longer trips, which are almost entirely dispensable. They are frivolities that have no place in the current emergency.

Quick action is needed: Everyone stop flying now.

NYT columnist Thomas Friedman, called a "sensitive man" by Tina Brown at last night's "Women in the World" event, said he'd heard that when Hillary Clinton wore her hair tied back...

... she was about "to deliver unpleasant news."

Hillary, icily, and with strange new hair (and face!) said: "Really, Tom?, and everyone laughed and laughed, because the topic was whether there's a "double standard" (gender-wise) and there's always been so much talk about Hillary's hair.

(I mean, I was totally distracted by her new look, which you can check out at that link. I think I notice how everyone looks, and I don't like feminist efforts to deprive us of our engagement with the visual world, but I've got to concede that our emotional reaction to the way female power-seekers look is much more complicated than how we feel about their male counterparts.)

Hillary said:

“There is a double standard, obviously.... We have all either experienced it or at the very least seen it. And there  is a deep set of cultural psychological views that are manifest through this double standard.”....

“Some of those attitudes, we know, persist.... And that’s why it's important that we surface them, and why we talk about them, and help men and women recognize when they are crossing over from an individual judgment — which we’re all prone to make and have a right to make about somebody, man or woman — into a stereotype.”...

“Too many young women are harder on themselves than circumstances warrant... At this point in my life and career I’ve employed so many young people — and one of the differences is, whenever I would say to a young woman, ‘I want you to do this. I want you to take on this extra responsibility. I want you to move up’ – almost invariably they would say ‘Do you think I can?’ or ‘Do you think I’m ready?’”

“When I’ve asked a young man if he wants to move up, he goes: ‘How high?’ ‘How fast?’ ‘When do I start?’... There is just a hesitancy still about women’s worth and women’s work that we’re going to have to continue to address.”

Notice how she holds women responsible too for their own failure to advance. Was that subtle enough to avoid the wrath of millennial females? She knocks her own female employees as insufficiently cocky and ambitious. We've got to "continue to address" the "hesitancy." These are careful words. Good enough to stay out of trouble as long as the women she needs to wrangle are allied in keeping her out of trouble, but if a handsome new man arrives on the scene — as in 2008 — she's got to worry that once again the Alliance of Women will collapse.

Thomas Friedman calls on Obama to stress "the private side..., a lot more entrepreneurship, a lot more start-ups and a lot more individual risk-taking..."

"... things the president rarely speaks about."

Somehow, this column is called "It’s P.Q. and C.Q. as Much as I.Q." It's some lingo that replaces entrepreneurship and individualism:

The winners won’t just be those with more I.Q. It will also be those with more P.Q. (passion quotient) and C.Q. (curiosity quotient) to leverage all the new digital tools to not just find a job, but to invent one or reinvent one, and to not just learn but to relearn for a lifetime. Government can and must help, but the president needs to explain that this won’t just be an era of “Yes We Can.” It will also be an era of “Yes You Can” and “Yes You Must.”

Why did Friedman use the terms P.Q. and C.Q.?
	NYT readers are afraid of individualism and other ideas associated with the right.
	NYT readers pride themselves on their I.Q., so P.Q. And C.Q. resonate.
	Best-seller writers like Friedman need to brand themselves with unique terminology.
	It connects the idea to Obama, whom NYT readers stereotype as having a high I.Q.
	Passion and curiosity fit better with the way women feel about themselves.
	All of the above.
	More than one, but less than all of the above. (Explain in the comments.)
	None of the above. (Explain in the comments.)
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