New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who fancies himself a man of peace, penned some savage words for two conservatives on Tuesday: Senator Ted Cruz and super-lobbyist Grover Norquist.
First Friedman wrote of his hopes that Norquist would drown: “Ted Cruz speaks of our government in the same way as the anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist, who says we should shrink government “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” (Am I a bad person if I hope that when Norquist slips in that bathtub and has to call 911, no one answers?)
Friedman wished Norquist dead, and then the Man of Peace dripped with more vitriol, saying of Cruz, “Ted Cruz does not have a good soul. He brims with hate, and his trashing of Washington, D.C., is despicable … Cruz wraps himself in an American flag and spits on all the institutions that it represents.”
Ah. In order to have a good soul, you must believe in big government.
For Friedman to play God, condemning political opponents to death or pontificating that they have no soul should not be surprising; Friedman’s narcissism rivals Barack Obama’s.
As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro wrote in 2003:
In February 2002, Friedman traveled to Saudi Arabia, where he played journalistic footsy with the Saudi royal family. Since the world revolves around him, Friedman decided that he would propose his Middle East peace plan to Crown Prince Abdullah. The plan involved an Israeli move to pre-1967 borders and acceptance of the phantom Palestinian “right of return” — in short, Israeli suicide. Oh-so-shockingly, Crown Prince Abdullah asked Friedman: “Have you broken into my desk?” Delighted that he had discovered the solution to Middle East peace, Friedman played the part of Saudi mouthpiece, breathlessly praising Abdullah as “the staunchest Arab nationalist among Saudi leaders, and the one most untainted by corruption.”
In June 2002, Friedman visited Iran, where he proclaimed: “The most striking thing about Iran today is the honesty you can find in the newspapers. Some mornings, they take your breath away.” The Iranian government, one of the most restrictive in the world, shut down at least 90 newspapers between April 2000 and January 2003.
Shapiro concluded of Friedman, “He wholeheartedly believes that he is infallible. His vision is clouded by his own inflated view of himself. Thomas Friedman is a sucker, made to order.”