Thomas Friedman wrote a rather self-serving piece today at Foreign Policy on the flaws in his "petropolitics" thesis. He kinda, sorta acknowledges the lack of empirical support for his argument, but then says of his chief critic, "I would simply note that [he] focuses on the effects of oil prices, which is a literal reading of the "first law.""
Oh. A "literal" reading. Should we have assumed you were being figurative when you stated that your "law" was a causal relationship between oil prices and authoritarianism?
Remember, we said that Friedman's article was an interesting thought piece but shouldn't be taken too seriously. Nice to know that he kinda, sorta agrees.
