Let me count the ways...

Tom Friedman is a charter member of my seriously annoying club, a category I reserve for smart guys who really ought to know better, but he has a great column in this morning's NYT.
One of the things that I can't figure out about the Bush team is why an administration that is so focused on projecting U.S. military strength abroad has taken such little interest in America's economic competitiveness at home - the underlying engine of our strength.
I can actually answer this one - because they are idiots whose brains are paralyzed by ideology. That and the fact they see our government as the enemy - it's hard to build the strength of our Nation when you are trying to be able to strangle it in the bathtub - to use Grover Nordquist's memorable phrase.

Friedman is even better when he starts documenting the ways our competitiveness has declined under Bush:
Thomas Bleha, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer in Japan, has a fascinating piece in the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs that begins like this: "In the first three years of the Bush administration, the United States dropped from 4th to 13th place in global rankings of broadband Internet usage.
But read the whole thing.

I have a few quibbles: Friedman seems to think expensing stock options is a terrible idea. I think this is absurd. Stock options can be a good idea, but hiding their cost from the investing public isn't. We need more transparency, not less.

Friedman is also deluded in apparently thinking that he can reason with the Bush-Frist-Delay-Hastert crowd, or appeal to their patriotic sentiments. These guys don't read, and they don't reason, and they aren't patriots.

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