proposal

In 2003, Thomas Friedman won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. In 2005, Friedman was invited to join the board of the Pulitzer committee. Our nation is killing itself from within.

Most every industry contains within itself a system of negative feedback by which to ensure that those who fail in their efforts are discouraged whereas those who succeed are encouraged. The most notable exception is the opinion media, which is itself among the most crucial and fundamental of all industries, being fundamental to the manner in which the public thinks - and thus votes, donates, and convinces its fellows, with the cumulative process thereafter being translated into action on the part of the greatest superpower to have ever existed. Thus it is that one of the most influential institutions in the world - the institution of the American punditocracy - is the least accountable. Once a pundit is made, he is rarely unmade.

Thomas Friedman is one of the most influential individuals to work in the most influential of industries, having written a popular New York Times column for well over a decade, having graced the various network news and cable networks for a similar period of time, and having written several bestsellers which are themselves read and respected by a large swath of the nations decision makers right on up to the current United States president. That Thomas Friedman has made a large number of terrible predictions while not elsewhere having made any particularly astute predictions, that his assertions sometimes directly and hilariously contradict assertions he mas made elsewhere, and that other columnists and even bloggers of far lesser influence have exhibited a far superior track record without having won any comparable acclaim is among the most obvious of indications that the United States is incapable of managing and distributing the information it requires to perform its role as a global superpower with reasonable regard for the consequences.

To the extent that we actually examine the output of the most influential and widely-read of what a hippie or Nixon might term to be the "establishment" pundits, we find the same extraordinary failures perpetrated by the majority of them. Charles Krauthammer has managed to get entirely and profoundly wrong every U.S. military conflict of the past twelve years as well as a smattering of other nation's engagements. Having opposed the surge before a year later supporting it and attacking those who opposed it, Krauthammer even missed out on the conservative consolation prize. Nonetheless he has grown only more influential over this period and is now commonly counted as being among the finest of commentators.

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Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302