<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/20/media/thomas-friedman-new-york-times-column/index.html" class="">http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/20/media/thomas-friedman-new-york-times-column/index.html</a><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><h2 class="speakable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; font-weight: 300; font-size: 26px; line-height: 38px; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">Thomas Friedman doesn't scare easily.</h2><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">The New York Times op-ed columnist is best known for his sober columns about foreign policy and technology.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">That's why <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/opinion/trump-russia-putin.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(17, 115, 180); text-decoration: none;" class="">his Monday column stood out.</a> "Our democracy is in serious danger," he wrote in the opening line. "President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy."</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">There was something about his last paragraph, in particular, that struck a chord. "This is code red," <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/opinion/trump-russia-putin.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(17, 115, 180); text-decoration: none;" class="">he wrote.</a> "The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office."</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">Friedman's column lit up on social media when it was posted on <a href="http://nytimes.com" class="">NYTimes.com</a> on Sunday night. Thirty six hours later, it is still No. 1 on the site's "most emailed articles" list. It is also No. 1 on the site's "most shared articles on Facebook" list. There have been more than 2,700 comments so far.</div><div id="ad_nat_btf_03" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class=""></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">"That's a personal record," Friedman told CNN.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">He said he was taken aback by the intensity of the reactions.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">After all, his column normally appears in print on Wednesdays. This was just a bonus column for the web. He just felt compelled to write it after Trump went on a tweetstorm over the weekend.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">"Not my day. Not in print. And it may be the most widely circulated column I've ever written," Friedman said.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">He titled the column <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/opinion/trump-russia-putin.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(17, 115, 180); text-decoration: none;" class="">"Whatever Trump Is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now."</a></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">Friedman felt compelled to write it on Sunday morning while driving from Washington to Baltimore for a golf lesson. On the drive, he said he was thinking about Trump's Twitter reaction to the newest indictments in Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">He said "there was something in Trump's reaction to Mueller that was deeply off." He called it "so unpresidential, it was frightening."</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">Trump's erratic tweets had assailed the FBI, the media, Democrats -- but not Moscow. "To me, it really crossed a line," Friedman said. While Trump has "broken many norms as president," these tweets were different. "He's no longer violating norms of the presidency, he's actually violating his oath to defend and protect the Constitution."</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">"Mueller told us the core of our democracy -- our electoral system -- had been attacked by Russia," Friedman added. "And Trump was focused exclusively on what Mueller's report said, or did not say, about him."</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">So he emailed a paragraph-long pitch to Times op-ed editor Jim Dao and editorial page editor James Bennet -- saying he had to write a column, just for the web, to express himself -- something he's done from time to time. "Hey, go for it," was the response from the editors, he said.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">Later in the day, back at home, he wrote the column in an unusually speedy two hours and ten minutes. "What I've learned as a columnist over the years is, when you write the right column at the right time, articulating a feeling that many people have but maybe didn't know quite how to express, you can get a big reaction," he said, adding, "This doesn't happen very often."</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">James Fallows of The Atlantic tweeted that the piece was "remarkable, and admirable." Frank Rich of New York magazine called it the "most uncompromising column of Tom Friedman's career."</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">David Corn of Mother Jones responded to Rich and said "Friedman is too late. Some of us have been saying this for a year and a half. Some of us warned of this before the election. Now he is merely stating the obvious."</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 27px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">But that's "what's interesting" about the column, Jim Edwards, founding editor of Business Insider UK, tweeted: "It simply describes the big picture in plain English, which many of us forget to do."</div><div id="storyFooter" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class=""></div><div class="clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"></div><div class="storytimestamp" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 40px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-size: 14px; font-family: CNN, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="cnnStorySource" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: block;">CNNMoney (New York)</span><span class="cnnDateStamp" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">First published February 20, 2018: 2:01 PM ET</span></div></div></body></html>