Not only do I hate Wal-Mart more every day, but Ol' Tommy Friedman is lamer by the minute

Tom Friedman is really starting to bother me. This op-ed carefully avoids missing any of the stereotypes about why people are opposed to free trade and CAFTA. Nope, they're all there.

1. Democrats resist free trade because they have "a protectionist fear of competition in a world without walls". (Oh, those Democrats are so FEARFUL)
   
2. "A.F.L.-C.I.O., ... doesn't like any free trade agreements" (Um, for no good reason? Just don't like it cause they don't??)
   
3. " Democrats who just want to defeat Cafta so they can make President Bush a lame duck have their way and block Cafta ratification." (Again, for no good reasons? Must be because they have no good ideas of their own and are just into obstruction as the current GOP line goes.)
   
4. "The administration has to get out and connect the dots for people," said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a thoughtful new book on foreign policy, "The Opportunity: America's Moment to Alter History's Course." "Otherwise the vocal minority will trump the interests of the majority. We should not assume that this backlash [against free trade] that is going around is just a French malaise or Dutch elm disease. It could happen here." (So, there's a danger that opponents of free trade may be connecting their arguments with foreign opponents. That's SO unfair to the "interests of the majority" (last time I checked if a majority of people OPPOSE something that's the interest of the majority). )
   
5. The communist meme: "Finally, there is geopolitics. In the 1980's, we were worried Central America was going to go communist. Now we are worried it is going to go capitalist? We spent billions fighting communism there. Now we have a chance to help consolidate these fragile democracies by locking in a trading relationship with the U.S. that is critical for their development. Shame on us if we balk." (So, because we spent billions on a series of wars against a phantom menace and in some cases the democratic will of the people in some of these nations, we need to foist another 'improvement' scheme on them. Plus, do anti-freetraders, a.k.a. Democrats somehow favor communism because they were against those misguided wars then and these free trade agreements now?)

For a clearly intelligent man, Friedman's been going off the deep end recently.