— Intellectually challenged New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman for “Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom,” a piece of pop punditry so mind-bogglingly stupid that even the mind-bogglingly stupid Thomas Friedman should be ashamed. The piece attempts to dumb down all of Middle East politics for American readers, whom Friedman obviously despises, insulting them with a turgid stream of journalistic junk as offensive as it is idiotic. Comparing Iranians to “parasitoid wasps” and Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq to caterpillars, he then lionizes the US (literally) before comparing Netanyahu to a “sifaka lemur.” I swear I am not making this up.