Tom Friedman: All the Interest in Sarah Palin 'A Sign of the Apocalypse'

If it's Sunday, someone must be bashing Sarah Palin on "Meet the Press."

On this holiday weekend, it was New York Times columnist Tom Friedman who said of all the interest in the former Alaska governor, "That’s a sign of the apocalypse" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

DAVID GREGORY, HOST: And you do have Perry on top followed by Romney and Sarah Palin, which gets to our "Trend Tracker" right now, tracking the hot political stories, and you may not be surprised when you look at the tracker that it's Sarah Palin. Still the question, as she was in Iowa over the weekend and dropping hints and making speeches. Will she run? Tom Friedman, there's still a great deal of interest in Sarah Palin as this political force in the middle of this huge conversation we're trying to have.

TOM FRIEDMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, to me personally - that’s a sign of the apocalypse.

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Funny. That's what a lot of conservatives said about all the interest in Barack Obama in 2008. Given the economy, unemployment, and the exploding debt, such people have been validated. But I digress:

FRIEDMAN: But, I mean, you know, because this woman, everything I hear from her is, has nothing to do with what we argue in our book, the long-term trends of where our country's at. There is no short-term solution. It’s not just getting rid of Obama. What strikes me about this moment, David, is like, we're having an economic crisis and the politicians are having an election and there's like no overlap between the two, almost. Yeah. It’s like these two circles.

You really have to wonder if Friedman pays any attention to what anyone that doesn't have a "D" next to his or her name says for folks like Palin and all the named Republican presidential candidates have been talking non-stop about the economy.

For him to suggest otherwise means that he's either not paying attention or is willing to lie on national television to promote his agenda.

But the real problem for Friedman is conservatives don't believe government can solve what ails the nation.

Quite the contrary, they think everything that's been tried to get the economy going since Obama took office has in the long run made matters worse.

And they're not alone.

If Friedman thinks the direction we're heading avoids the apocalypse, he's in a very small minority as currently almost 75 percent of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track.

Makes you wonder which of the four horses he's riding.