Just what is it about Pulitzer-prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman that has people so up in arms about him?

Some time ago, he came here, to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for a media conference. The local journalists were all salivating at the prospect of having him here in Dubai so they could get their hooks into his hide. Apparently, he'd said some things they didn't like: some of them even accused him of "out-Sharoning" Ariel Sharon.

At the time, I have to admit that I was rather ignorant of his work. For me, Friedman was just another face on an op-ed page that I might have seen once in a while, but not seriously checked out. I remember hearing a few complaints about his work, both from the Left back home and the Arab media here and abroad, but I really never took the time to check it out.

While he was at the Dubai conference, he stomped out of a debate in anger, insulted at something that was said by some guy from Saudi. I'm not exactly sure what it was about what the fellow said that ticked Friedman off, but I think it might have been the implication that the Saudi government had given him a plane to tour the country in, and then wondered why he was still being so "rude" to them, when in fact Friedman and the New York Times were the ones paying for his travel?

But then I was reading the results of an impromptu interview between one of the Gulf News' mouthpieces and Friedman, conducted 'backstage' while they were trying to get him to go back onstage. I couldn't believe how snide, insulting and rude the other guy was. Friedman defended his leaving, and tried his best to explain his viewpoint, but the other guy was having none of that. And then, in the writeup in the paper, the other guy was trying to make Friedman look like the bad guy...?

That did it for me: if the guy was provoking that kind of smoke, then there had to be some fire, somewhere. So I popped online, checked out Friedman's old columns, saw what the various folks had to say about him, and went looking for the blaze.

But do you know what? What I've found, instead of the caricature that gets bandied about, is an articulate, well-reasoned guy whose comments on the Middle East are - by and large - very close to the same things I've been writing. Both sides in Israel/Palestine are run by feebs. Islam is not the enemy, but wide gulfs of mutual misunderstanding exist between the civilizations. And as for his oft-quoted cry to "give war a chance" ... well, I can see how being that up front could have been a little provocative. But is anyone sorry to see Al-Queda on the run and the Taliban out of power? Really?

Maybe I'm missing some "black column," early in his career, when he said something insufferably stupid and self-damning that's haunted him ever since. But in the absence of that, and with what I can see, I think I can see why he's gotten the Pulitzer. The man is a good writer and has a good grasp of what's going on.

And, in the course of my research, I think I finally figured out what the "problem" with Thomas Friedman really is: it's that he isn't a shill.

He's not there to act as an unquestioning mouthpiece for either side. Instead, he says what he thinks about a situation, not trying to please anyone but his own notion of what the truth is - a rare quality in a trade that can be terribly sycophantic at times.

This means he's insulted both sides in a rather contentious debate, and spared no one hurt feelings if the story demands it. For example: while the Arab media is excoriating him for being "pro-Zionist" for his views on Israel and Palestine, the hardcore Israeli media is calling him "anti-Zionist," and a "court Jew" to boot, for those same exact views.

It's been my experience that if the hardcore elements of both sides' media both think you're in league with the other side, then either (1) one or both sides are on crack, or (2) you're pretty much telling it like it is. And this is one debate where folks just don't want the news going out without their spin on it, because both sides wind up looking less than exemplary.

But what really gets me about this whole matter is the Arab media reaction to him: they practically think he's in league with Iblis, Himself. That's just sad. They have no right to be damning him for "biased journalism" when they can be just as biased, and unashamedly so (see the links earlier in this column for prime examples). And it's sad because they're complaining about his take on things when there is much, much worse to be found in Western media.

His is a field where rage-fueled dreams of cultural genocide can be pawned off as "tongue in cheek" comments; where the notion of nuking Mecca in retaliation for another 9/11 can be taken far too seriously by far too many people; where Islam can be called a "pathology" and judged in its entirety by the actions of its most extreme segments; where the Noble Q'uran can be compared to "Mein Kampf," and the Prophet (PBUH) can be called a "terrorist."

Seen in that light, Friedman's most vitriolic commentary comes across as nothing worse than a stiff breeze from the wrong direction. Maybe his Arab detractors should stop condemning him and start reading what others in his field have been saying. If they did, I think they'd complain about him less and send their anger against the people who really deserve it: the prejudiced, angry op-ed hacks who, unlike Friedman, have neither a sense of grace nor any idea what they're talking about.

But as for me, I have to thank Thomas Friedman for coming to Dubai and storming off the stage. I've bookmarked his op-ed slot at The New York Times and made him a part of my weekly news routine.

I humbly suggest you - and his second-hand detractors and talentless imitators - do the same.

"I hate quotations." - Ralph Waldo Emerson