Tough times just don't go away for pompous New York Times columnists, this time Tom Friedman.

Up to now I have not favored removing President Trump from office. I felt strongly that it would be best for the country that he leave the way he came in, through the ballot box. But last week was a watershed moment for me, and I think for many Americans, including some Republicans.

It was the moment when you had to ask whether we really can survive two more years of Trump as president, whether this man and his demented behavior — which will get only worse as the Mueller investigation concludes — are going to destabilize our country, our markets, our key institutions and, by extension, the world. And therefore his removal from office now has to be on the table.

I believe that the only responsible choice for the Republican Party today is an intervention with the president that makes clear that if there is not a radical change in how he conducts himself — and I think that is unlikely — the party’s leadership will have no choice but to press for his resignation or join calls for his impeachment.

It has to start with Republicans, given both the numbers needed in the Senate and political reality. 

He's pleading to Republicans now to hold this "intervention" on President Trump, calling on them of all people to impeach and get rid of him for him, as if those guys would like the result as much as Friedman would.

It reeks of desperation.

Here's the other thing: Friedman's actual argument reeks of the classic #NeverTrump focus on style that has been their hallmark (the old crease in the pants is important!) and which is the central key to understanding the like or hate of Trump. Get a load of how Friedman sees it:

But this is not just about the world, it’s about the minimum decorum and stability we expect from our president. If the C.E.O. of any public company in America behaved like Trump has over the past two years — constantly lying, tossing out aides like they were Kleenex, tweeting endlessly like a teenager, ignoring the advice of experts — he or she would have been fired by the board of directors long ago. Should we expect less for our president?

Ah, the decorum thing. Better throw him out, he doesn't have the right court manners. And here's the funny thing. Actually, there are CEOs who act like that - one of them was named Trump, and here's another thing: A lot of them are like Trump. Just read this superb piece by the son of a hotel magnate recently in the American Thinker, explaining that Trump cuts a very recognizable figure as the hotel magnate that he is, because that's how you do it in that industry. Friedman wouldn't know jack about this.

What's more, Friedman apparently hasn't read anything at all by Trump-watcher Salena Zito, who, conveniently for Friedman, wrote a piece in The Atlantic, to explain to urban Democrats why Trump happened out in Deplorableville. Repeat after me, Tom: "Seriously, but not literally ... seriously but not literally." That's how Trump supporters read Trump, as opposed to glossy elite Trump haters, who, she explains, take all of his remarks literally but not seriously.

As Friedman rants and rants and rants about all the obscure foreign places he knows about and the useless international organizations he seems to be a big fan of, one can only nod knowingly and wonder where the heck he's been the last two years when others have been going to that well to complain those very same complaints.