Another problem I have with Friedman is that over the past couple years or so his writing has improved. I don't mean it's good. At best it's serviceable. But it's no longer so-bad-it's-good bad and unintentionally funny. I miss his old awfulness. His new stuff tends to be just plain old bad-bad.

I'll leave this here. It's a 2009 Matt Taibbi take down is really great.

Matt Taibbi: Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas L. Friedman.

[...]

[Friedman] says:

I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.

Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.

This would be a small thing were it not for the overall pattern. Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it's absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius.

The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that's guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.

And Taibbi is a story unto himself. What a strange guy. He used to be a real journalist. But - for whatever reason - he transformed himself into a total hack for hire who will do anything for the right price even being a stooge for Elon.