Another Brain-Dead Column by Friedman, this one on gas tax hike

Tom Friedman is a total con man, writing books about the obvious while peddling snake oil and BS. His latest canard is a gasoline tax hike, to make our country more like the Europe this buffoon should move to. TF forgets, or is too effing stupid to know, that large countries the size of the USA, Australia, Canada [even Canada!], and Russia all have low gas taxes because of large distances to be travelled to keep the wheels of commerce turning. Such a practical thought would never enter the tiny mind of Arab-bashing Jew-boy Friedman, who brings the Saudis in as the comic book villain. He cites a left-wing moron to make his point:

There has to be a system that permanently changes consumer demand, which would permanently change what Detroit makes, which would attract more investment in battery technology to make electric cars, which would hugely help the expansion of the wind and solar industries — where the biggest drawback is the lack of batteries to store electrons when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining. A higher gas tax would drive all these systemic benefits.

The same is true in geopolitics. A gas tax reduces gasoline demand and keeps dollars in America, dries up funding for terrorists and reduces the clout of Iran and Russia at a time when Obama will be looking for greater leverage against petro-dictatorships. It reduces our current account deficit, which strengthens the dollar. It reduces U.S. carbon emissions driving climate change, which means more global respect for America. And it increases the incentives for U.S. innovation on clean cars and clean-tech.

Which one of these things wouldn’t we want? A gasoline tax “is not just win-win; it’s win, win, win, win, win,” says the Johns Hopkins author and foreign policy specialist Michael Mandelbaum. “A gasoline tax would do more for American prosperity and strength than any other measure Obama could propose.”

Although the above paras are chock-a-block with received opinions and fixed ideas such as the totally discredited Global Warming Hoax, Friedman finally goes over the top to cite Mandelbaum's little socialistic tax-hike to boost "prosperity" when gas price rises have historically hindered prosperity and caused the economy to slow down.

Not that one of the prime freakshows on the NYT's Op-Ed page featuring cretins like Krugman and Herbert and the occasionally readable Dowd ever really thinks about anything. Read his recent line about the Jetsons and the Flintstones which trope he has used, according to WSJ debunker James Taranto, at least a half-dozen times in the last three years.

Always wrong, but never in doubt, Friedman sells books to half-educated housewives and males with housewives' brains.

Every con man has his day, but Friedman is the Bernie Madoff of journalism.