Wading into Friedmanese Without a Map

I admire Matt Taibbi. He's gone through Thomas Friedman's "work" a number of times, has written a couple of the very best columns on Friedman's nonsense, and yet still seems to be a functioning human being (one of Taibbi's columns is an all-time classic).

Checking out Friedman's column today I decided to look at syntax and style of the first couple of paragraphs, rather than the actual content. This is the challenge.

The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays.

Ok, first let's see if I can get into the spirit of critiquing a Friedman column. I'm working without a net on this one so if I don't come up for air you'll understand that I just got snowed over by the material (how was that?....yeah I know, it takes years to master Friedmanese and I'm just on the first lap).

So here he was today:

For one day, for one hour, let us take a bow as a country. Nearly 233 years after our founding, 144 years after the close of our Civil War and 46 years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, this crazy quilt of immigrants called Americans finally elected a black man, Barack Hussein Obama, as president. Walking back from the inauguration, I saw an African-American street vendor wearing a home-stenciled T-shirt that pretty well captured the moment — and then some. It said: “Mission Accomplished.”

But we cannot let this be the last mold we break, let alone the last big mission we accomplish. Now that we have overcome biography, we need to write some new history — one that will reboot, revive and reinvigorate America. That, for me, was the essence of Obama’s inaugural speech and I hope we — and he — are really up to it.

Let's see what I can come up with. They must not let this be the last time they break a mold like the way they just broke the mold of the crazy quilt of immigrants not voting for a black man ... I think...

Continuing ....now that they have overcome the country's history of .... racism? (on a content level that's even funnier), they need to make some new history by "rebooting" or starting the country again. Very clear.

I need a nap. I've got a headache.