Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd, Close But No Cigars

I was going through last week's International Herald Tribunes over breakfast and found two "close but no cigar" articles.


Thomas Friedman mocked the fact that French university students were protesting against the raise in retirement age in France.  He's right that they're protesting the wrong issue, but he's wrong, too. 

The students should be happy that retirement age is going up and not protest that it shouldn't.  Baby boomers in the states are still supporting their parents' Social Security at an age when their parents were able to retire.  It's bad for the students to have their parents' generation retire young.  Think about it.  It's the younger generation which supports retirees in most societies, at least the public/state pensions, like American Social Security and various free and subsidized services.  Just food for thought, a bit of out of the box thinking.


Maureen Dowd got U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama all wrong:

At first it was exciting that Obama was the sort of brainy, cultivated Democrat who would be at home in a “West Wing” episode.


But now he acts like he really thinks he’s on “West Wing,” gliding through an imaginary, amber-lit set where his righteous self-regard is bound to be rewarded by the end of the hour.


Hey, dude, you’re a politician. Act like one.

Hey, Dowd, U. S. President Barack Hussein Obama was nominated by a "casting director," not as the result of many years of political experience. Obama is no more than an actor trying to play at being the president.

Dowd, you were duped.