"Where's the Wall?"

The New York Times, on the verge of becoming the CNN of the printed word, needs an international affairs columnist who gets Europe

It's been weeks since the rift in US and German relations was news (see Laughing Off the Brouhaha). Sure, Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, flew across the Atlantic last week and chatted with US Secretary of State Colin Powell. By all accounts, though, nothing much was said that would change anything any time soon. If and when the US attacks Iraq, Germany will still not be joining in, and as for the "war on terror," Germany's main contribution will remain sending in peacekeeping forces in the aftermath.

"The most important thing about the trip was that it happened," Fischer was quoted as saying. There's a diplomat who knows how to appreciate a symbolic gesture when there's little else to comment on. The rift may not have healed yet, but it hasn't been causing any real damage to either side, either. Both the US and Germany have other, more important things to worry about: European expansion, moribund economies, that sort of thing.

Why then, one wonders, did Thomas Friedman devote his column in the New York Times on Sunday to the "crisis between America and Germany today"? Evidently because he's happened through Berlin recently. Right off the top, Friedman reveals the depth of his expertise on the matter he's going to spill a few hundreds words' worth of ink on: "Where's the wall?"

Well, Mr. Friedman, it's been gone for over 12 years now. But he knew that, of course. It's a rhetorical ploy, a set up for another: "Would somebody please bring back the Berlin Wall?" The idea is that if Germany is going to plant itself "to the left of Saudi Arabia," then it -- and the rest of Europe -- is in dire need of a big, concrete warning sign that there are "religious totalitarians" out there every bit as dangerous as the "Communist totalitarians" of yore. We are, in fact, "now in World War III."

Friedman name-drops Fischer for support of his argument but neglects to mention that Fischer is just as adamantly opposed to a baseless and potentially catastrophic attack on Iraq as Chancellor Schröder is, the man Friedman says "ran against America" to win the September election. The whole column, in fact, is pretty muddy, and other than, "We need each other," it's hard to figure out what the man is trying to say. Interestingly enough, Friedman himself is "still not sure what the right way is to handle Iraq," though in the past, the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner has been one of the most ferocious supporters of blasting away at Iraq at every given opportunity.

It wouldn't be so worrisome that Friedman doesn't even attempt to grok the European take on things if he weren't the star international affairs columnist at the NYT. The author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, a wildly pro-globalization tract, has basically one answer to all the world's problems: blue jeans and fast cars for everybody.

Great swaths of the world hate, or at least, resent America because they're jealous, he argues. Give them want they want -- in short, Americanize them -- and you've got your terrorism problem wrapped up and ready to toss into the dustbin of history, right next to the Wall.

Leaving aside that mangled logic, keep in mind that the NYT is on the verge of becoming the CNN of the printed word. Already, no other newspaper in the world has a more popular Web site. And now, the NYT has bought out the Washington Post's half of the International Herald Tribune. Many speculate that the NYT will turn the IHT into an international edition of itself, making it the first major global newspaper.

It's a fine paper. But it's going to need international affairs columnist who gets Europe.

Elsewhere

On the economic front, Europe's stability and growth pact is still bad news for the unemployed, Germany's banking system is still a mess and the government still hasn't won business and labor leaders over to its plans for reform.