News flash: new Friedman meme introduced

I like Tom Friedman. But sometimes he tries a bit too hard to coin new little Friedmanisms. Some of them succeed and some flop. You know what I mean. "The world is flat" was a winner; "the First Law of Petropolitics" got buzz for a few days; and "geo-green" never really took off.

The latest, on Meet the Press yesterday:

"...what I call ET, energy technology, is going to be the next IT, the next great industrial revolution."

OK, first of all, "ET" is taken. Secondly, you could have just said "energy technology is going to be the next great industrial revolution." There's no need to coin new terminology for this. No need at all.

To quote one of my favorite movies, "Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen! It's not going to happen!"