The point was the man is a non-entity as a public intellectual. Never heard of him. I followed the link and saw he is a contributor to the New Republic, which firmly marks his politics. It is common practice in American academic circles to take a radical stand against the perceived consenual opinion of the day to market oneself. Once you have a Ph.D, Joerg, you fight against hundreds of qualified applicants from a global talent pool for advancement and this struggle continues until you achieve your sinecure. There is no gradual professorial advancement of habilitation and professional acclimitatization. Makes for crazy stuff at times; there are more books published on great American politicans who may or may not have been a bender than I care to think of.

To get "over" presupposes that Americans were suffering some psychic malady over the attacks that clouded the nation's collective judgment. Some case for that, but hardly consistent with the European meme of a nation traumatized you read in the Spiegel or FAZ, where housewives are afraid to go shopping b/c of Achmed selling pears on the corner. Friedman thinks the same thing, but that is not corroborated, in my experience, anywhere; this lapse into collective irrationality is a democratic mainstay for the far-left and Besserwisser. If Hilliary gets elected, American foreign policy is not going to change. Hilliary will be even more hawkish that Bill.

Joerg, Friedman has not been a mainstream commentator since 2004 when what once was a sane if opinated view-point morphed into a sadistic orgy of national self-flagellation—his artistic approximation of war facts and his continued use of tired democratic talking points eroded whatever credibility he might have had. Sadly since from Beirut to Jerusalem is a great primer for the complexities and insoluble hatreds of our beloved Middle East. Joerg-- Friedman is not an intellectual; he is a pundit. He gives good copy and is somewhat eloquent for the CNN/PBS roundtables. That’s a little snarky perhaps, but really how pedestrian was the whole world is flat shtick? It is an interesting working thesis, considering the huge number of global prerequisites that would have to taken place before this world of free competition was birthed.
As for Friedman’s mentioning of intellectual to bolster his own ideas, that means nothing. The only school, in the continental sense, we have I can think of is the Chicago school. There is no Frankfurter Schule or disciples of so and so’s analytical historiography running around and presenting a solid, ideological front to a hostile, misunderstanding world. Clinton in ’95 at the height of PCness wanted to put a law professor by the name of Lani Granier on the Sup Ct bench. She’s a gender-obsessed neo-Marxist fanatic who wanted to institute shifting procedural and evidentiary paradigms based upon the party’s gender, race and economic situation (think PC Volksgericht). She made Bork look like Kennedy. Clinton threw her under the bus, when she became political inconvenient. Friedman is an opportunist. Only the remaining NYT readers and foreigners care.

Check the numbers, David, pre-Pinch and currently. If Pinch, didnt have a golden share option the institutional investors would have taken the company away from him. The demise of 'Times select' ring a bell. By any objective measure, the NYT is a ghost of its former self and I greatly resent the fact that Pinch ran into the ground my home paper.

What does Bush have to do with anything? Why are the two connected in your mind? Who reads the WaTimes? No one mentioned politics but you--other than Lani Granier.

Influx--I did not say that Germans were afraid of Achmed on the corner. What I said was that the Pitzkes of the world at one time attempted to portray the American public as traumatized and security-obsessed to the point where they would alter their routines to avoid any contact with Muslims. They stopped the characterization when Iraq happened, but I found it curious.

Influx- there were not articles expressly addressing the topic, but for a period of 18th months before the brou-haa at the SC and Schroeder’s grandstanding filled the headlines. I remember FAZ because previously I had always held it in high regard and felt really miffed at their degeneracy into yellow journalism. Now an NZZ man