Friedmanisms

Thomas Friedman's famous penchant for ridiculous metaphors is on fine display in yesterday's column:

If I were to draw a picture of America today, it would be of the space shuttle taking off. There is all this thrust coming from below. But the booster rocket — Washington — is cracked and leaking energy, and the pilots in the cockpit are fighting over the flight plan. So we can’t achieve escape velocity to enter the next orbit — the next great industrial revolution, which is going to be E.T., energy technology.

He also wonders how "we get our groove back as a country."