( CNN ) -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Thomas Friedman is never short of a word or two . Thomas L. Friedman : `` Incredible opportunities masquerading as insoluble problems . '' The celebrated commentator occupies a position in his profession that many of his contemporaries would rival . He gets to go where he wants , when he wants and write about what he thinks , or as he puts it : `` I get to be a tourist with an attitude . '' Officially , he 's The New York Times ' foreign affairs columnist -- a position he 's held since 1995 -- as well as the author of five books . Through his syndicated column his opinion has become a recognizable American voice on the international stage , and with it has come a sense of responsibility . `` I agonize over every column . Precisely because I know it is going to be read by a lot of people and it 's going to be in Google forever , '' he told CNN . `` So there is that sense of responsibility , but at the same time you do have to take the attitude of 'This is what I think . This is why I think it . ' I 'm not in a popularity contest . '' Before his current position , Friedman served in various posts at the New York Times , including chief economic correspondent , chief White House correspondent and bureau chief in Beirut and Israel . His reporting from Lebanon in 1983 and work in Israel in 1988 won him Pulitzer Prizes for international reporting . Taking in the world provides never-ending fascination , he says . `` I have the best job in the world , I mean , somebody has to have it . '' He 's recently trained his eye on how America can reassert itself by leading the way in green technology , encapsulated in his latest book `` Hot , flat and crowded . '' As he admits , the environmental aspect is not the point of the book ; really it 's a treatise on how America `` lost its groove and why we need to get it back by taking the lead in the energy revolution . '' One man who will need to take a pivotal role is the incoming U.S. president , Barack Obama , Friedman says . `` I have a lot of high hopes for him . I think we are very lucky to have someone with his raw material as the next president . I think he brings together several things that we have n't had , '' Friedman told CNN . Whether Obama can solve the raft of problems he faces is another matter . `` Is he ready to be as radical as the moment ? Really have the courage of our crisis ? At the end of the day it 's gon na be Barack Obama and ( Chinese President ) Hu Jintao . We 're not going to get out of this without cooperating and working closely with China , '' Friedman said . While presenting a view from the United States , Friedman is still able to do a mea culpa on America 's behalf when it comes to the current economic crisis . `` We were in the middle of a huge credit bubble which in its own way was a Ponzi scheme . We gave the world financial SARs . We just spread it around the world . '' An optimist by nature -- `` I do live by the motto that pessimists are usually right , but all the great change in history was done by optimists '' -- he 's sanguine when it comes to the planet in the current climate of economic depression and environmental urgency . `` What I 'm basically arguing is that you can look at the world today that is hot , flat , and crowded and you can have one of two reactions . One reaction is to say 'We 're cooked , let 's party , ' '' he said . `` That 's not the way I 'd look at it . I 'd look at it the way John Gardner , the founder of Common Cause , once described . I look at these problems that come from hot , flat and crowded and what I see are incredible opportunities masquerading as insoluble problems . ''
Pulitzer Prize - winning journalist and author : ` ` I ' m not in a popularity contest '' On US and global economic situation : ` ` We gave the world financial SARS '' On Barack Obama : ' Is he ready to be as radical as the president ? '