Dancing Alone THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

It is time to ask this question: Do we have any chance of succeeding at regime change in Iraq without regime change here at home?

"Hey, Friedman, why are you bringing politics into this all of a sudden? You're the guy who always said that producing a decent outcome in Iraq was of such overriding importance to the country that it had to be kept above politics."

Yes, that's true. I still believe that. My mistake was thinking that the Bush team believed it, too. I thought the administration would have to do the right things in Iraq — from prewar planning and putting in enough troops to dismissing the secretary of defense for incompetence — because surely this was the most important thing for the president and the country. But I was wrong. There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so. It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West.

I admit, I'm a little slow. Because I tried to think about something as deadly serious as Iraq, and the post- 9/11 world, in a nonpartisan fashion — as Joe Biden, John McCain and Dick Lugar did — I assumed the Bush officials were doing the same. I was wrong. They were always so slow to change course because confronting their mistakes didn't just involve confronting reality, but their own politics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/opinion/13FRIE.html

YET.

Friedman was always someone I respected, whether agreeing or disagreeing with him. He's never become a supporter of any major Bush or right-wing policy for this administration other than regime change. And I just think it's simplistic to think in a way where disagreeing on one issue(as most people here have with Friedman in Iraq) albeit a major one, gives people the automatic disposition of hating a person for it.

Goddam you Tom Friedman--your political forsight is for shit, your journalistic prowess is absolutely laughable.
Mr. Friedman, why the hell are you in the business>
Many of us ( young, qualified, CURIOUS,) journalists are more than ready to restore our free press. Lay in a sack of shit in retirement.

Yours,
The rest of the world.

If nothing else, this article proves that Friedman is a total idiot in the way he misjudged the Bush regime. All the things that he couldn't see, I saw long before the invasion. He also embraces the core beliefs of the neocons. I will never respect a neocon.

He was one of the biggest shills out there for this war, and he helped to give it a more respectable veneer, by not appearing to be a firebreathing RW maniac.

He has blood on his hands, and I believe that of all the shilling columnists out there, he is the one that I despise the most.

I hope my post didn't dissappoint you.:)

You could possibly share the dissapointment I have in Tom Friedman. I am afraid he shall be as respected as Geraldo Riviera.

to be as great a journalist as Geraldo, but I think he's really blown it. Maybe he could achieve Jerry Springer status.:D

"appearing" or he isn't right wing, he isn't firebreathing, and he isn't a maniac.

Pulitzer prizes don't give themselves away. As if had Friedman not supported the idea of regime change it wouldn't have happened

Edited to close a quote.

The estimable Mr. Friedman supported regime change and regime change only.

Oh. And the BushCo Israel/Palestine policy.

Oops. Also globalization (a right-wing policy, at least as practiced by these people).

Oh, yeah. French-hating.

Wait! The general "give war a chance" policy to foreign policy. ("Fist in a velvet glove" ring any bells?)

But other than that, he didn't support any Boosh/right-wing policies.

Unless I overlooked some.

We wrote him letters about it. Saying stuff like, Sure it would be nice to dump Saddam but look at the cost, look at the horrific risks in the current context, and above all, look at the ideologically self-deluded buffoons you're trusting to do this stupendously difficult and complicated thing.

I used to respect him too. I'm sorry he was gulled. But he was. And highly paid professional journalists aren't supposed to get taken like a two-bit rube in a game of 3-card monte.

a dellusional moron. hard to tell from column to column.

fuck you, freiedman, i heard you giddily parroting the chimps 'they though we would just sue them, but we're going over there to kick their ass' line of BS. one of the more disgusting things i've heard on the radio. the thought of war gave you, like so many other chicken-hawks in this country, a hard-on.

and you're still polishing turds for bush, blaming the war on karl rove.

"I admit, I'm a little slow." - no tom, you're a liar playing CYA.

I don't know how warped your filter has to be to get that out of the article

but that was OK with him, when it looked like it was going well.

Now that it has proven to be a utter disaster, he wants to take his marbles & go home.

Not good enough, Tom.

He has simply come to the very belated realization that the Bush cabal is incompetent and motivated by their own political agendas rather than striving to achieve peace and justice for all mankind through transforming the Middle East.

As a metaphor, he wanted a particular dish. It was prepared for him, but after he ate a substantial amount, he realized that it tasted like crap, the chef was completely incompetent and had totally screwed it up. He still wants that dish, he just wants it prepared by a competent chef.

I so much appreciate your heroism: against the grain:

Why, in the face of the Abu Ghraib travesty, wouldn't the administration make some uniquely American gesture? Because these folks have no clue how to export hope. They would never think of saying, "Let's close this prison immediately and reopen it in a month as the Abu Ghraib Technical College for Computer Training — with all the equipment donated by Dell, H.P. and Microsoft." Why didn't the administration ever use 9/11 as a spur to launch a Manhattan project for energy independence and conservation, so we could break out of our addiction to crude oil, slowly disengage from this region and speak truth to fundamentalist regimes, such as Saudi Arabia? (Addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.) Because that might have

Tom, Tom, Tom....tsk tsk....