Friedman, Mr. Bush's Fluffer

Do you know what a fluffer is? I was well into my 30s before I did, and my naivete was perhaps in part a mixture of a) not being a fan of porn movies (boy, they can turn something that can be so wonderful into something so uninspired and b) not happening to read the kind of books where stuff like this gets explained (which books those would be, I cannot answer).

A fluffer, in porn parlance, is the (usually wo)man hired to orally manipulate a man's penis to get it erect for filming. More and more, I'm convinced this term applies to The Times' Tom Friedman, a man I once respected as a "Middle East expert" until I wised up; I've mentioned this (too) many times before.

So when I read the following at James Wolcott's blog, I was more than merely amused; the author he cites is James Howard Kuntsler:

Here's his latest lyric from a leafy glade, and I think we can all agree the final graf is a real feel-gooder.

"The [New York] Times's star columnist Thomas Friedman is making hay this season with his new book, The World is Flat, about the global economy. His book asserts that current trends will continue indefinitely -- China will continue to manufacture ever more of America's household products, Americans will continue to enjoy cash-out home equity loans to buy plastic patio chairs made in China, WalMart will keep running its warehouse-on-wheels at a thumping great profit, and all impediments to global trade will be vanquished by telemarketing, computer technology, and confident corporate can-do spirits. I am tempted to ask how Friedman manages to type on a laptop with his head so far up his ass, but this blog is dedicated, above all, to a high-minded brand of politeness so we'll just say that he is not paying attention to a gathering global energy shitstorm that is going to change absolutely everything -- including global economic relations which pundits foolishly maintain to be permanent conditions of life.


"Here in the States, the price of a barrel of oil is back over $55 and we are only one week into the summer vacation driving season. President Bush is running a scam on the public by pretending to push Congress to act on an energy bill that offers nothing to realistically address the nation's oil addiction and, especially, its car dependency. He doesn't dare, I suppose, because he must know that the American economy is about little more than car dependency. But just watch: as the price for a barrel of oil heads north past $60, Bush's abject leadership failure will become self-evident and the public mood will appear to shift overnight. The oval office will become a very lonely place indeed by this coming fall, and its occupant will have three long and terrible years left to suffer there."

Oh, yes, I do like that last part.

But Bush never seems bothered by reality. Have you ever seen him actually display a great deal of thought, even though Scotty and others keep having to tell us "he agonizes?" I suspect the only thing Bush has ever agonized over is when he ran out of cocaine in the old days or the White House French chef makes a bad batch of baked beans.