Holes

As a dabbler in the holes cliche myself (eg, "The first rule of holes is when you're in one, stop digging," or "We're in a hole and Barack Obama is the man with the rope") I was tickled to read an evisceration of Thomas Friedman's use of the trope.

via Daring Fireball, here's an anti-Friedman rant from Matt Taibbi:

Or how about Friedman’s analysis of America’s foreign policy outlook last May:

The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging. When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.”

First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you’re supposed to stop digging when you’re in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense? It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if the editors over at the New York Times editorial page spend their afternoons dropping acid or drinking rubbing alcohol.