When I was a younger
lad man, there was no one around to tell me that
Tom Friedman was an utter buffoon. I'm sure someone I knew thought he was a buffoon, maybe many people, but as Tom Friedman unsurprisingly wasn't the central subject of many conversations it wasn't too likely to come up. Obviously he must be a very serious person, as he writes bestselling books on very serious things, has a very influential column in the New York Times, is treated reverentially when he goes on the teevee, etc...
I'm not quite sure when I realized that little Tommy was a buffoon. I did force my students to read one of his books (among others of course) and by the end I think we'd all decided he was a buffoon.
I think that if there's one contribution to humanity that liberal blogs have made it's the fact that they have greatly increased the number of people who understand that he is a buffoon.
