I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Shorter Atrios' "shorter Friedman":
You can skip this one too.
When you hot,
you hot!
Actually, I think the shorter Tommy "Waste of Space" Friedman is
When the antiwar left said we couldn't go it alone they were absolutely wrong but now that I am saying it (thousands of lives and billions of dollars later) I am right and the left is still wrong.
It is a war of the forces of tolerance, pluralism and decency against the forces of intolerance, bigotry and religious fascism.
That sounds like Election 2004!
Seriously - when did the Right appropriate the term fascism to describe its enemies? The last I checked, fascism refered to a authoritarian system of government characterized by an economy which combined central planning with free-market ("corporatist") elements. How this applies to al-Qa3ida, Satan, or any of our other enemies, I'll never know.
Chalk it up to another example of Newspeak. By deeming everything that is un-American "fascist," it is easy to conceal the uncomfortable reality of fascism.
Longer Shorter Thomas Friedman: The Bush conservatives are wrong to be arrogant and believe that all that matters is our will and power, but they are right to bomb a bunch of towelheads - any towelheads - in order to impose our superior Western values on their backwards civilization.
what would friedman do?
Shorter comment thread:
"My 'shorter' is wittier than yours."
Wasn't Friedman's wife against this whole folly? Maybe she should start writing his columns. She's obviously a lot smarter.
. . .The Europeans have eaten crow on Saddam?
I think the final line on Saddam will be he was a bad dude, glad he's gone but was no threat to anyone not living in Iraq; was it worth 540 lives and $200,000,000,000.00 to have him gone? I think perhaps I would rather be on the crow eating side.
Chalk it up to another example of Newspeak. By deeming everything that is un-American "fascist," it is easy to conceal the uncomfortable reality of fascism.
Ronald Merrick | Email | Homepage | 02.07.04 - 9:47 pm | #
oh, I don't know about that... the Bush regime is profoundly un-American and I consider them fascists...
Shorter Friedman: "How can I use Janet Jackson's tit as a springboard into talking about the war?"
Shorter Friedman Part 2:
The war was good for Israel, but I can't say that openly...
Meme Vote
What would you say is the best phrase that describes George W. Bush?
A) Miserable Failure
B) Dyslexic Chimp
C) Moral Coward
D) Affable Mascot/Puppet (toss up)
E) Ignorant Bully
F) ABB
Are you down with ABB?
Yeah, U know me...Knob Creek good...
Julius Streicher was a German newspaper owner who was tried at Nuremberg for his propagadistic support of the Nazis.
In particular, he was convicted and hanged for his support of waging aggressive war, in particular against Poland.
Streicher demonized Jews and slavs. What he did is not so different from what Friedman does twice a week in "The New York Times", targeting Arabs and Islamic nations.
Like Streicher, he preaches hatred, but with a more "moderate" and modern twist.
Friedman should be particularly concerned about his advocacy of the preventative war on Iraq, which stands as the premier war crime of this young century.
Check out the excerpts from Michael Lind's book on Brad Delongs page.
Lind is a former neocon, who left because the movement was taken over by a combination of Likudniks and Christian nutcases, whose main goal was helping israel.
Gosh, I bet David Brooks didn't know that!
Chicken Little Cheney is good. If they weren't going to dump him for Rudy anyway.
Friedman is the very personifacation of hypocrisy, his essence is hypocrisy, he lives and breathes hypocrisy, next to the word hypocrisy in the dictionary is picture of friedman.
what I'd like to know is, does Friedman wear a jock strap when he straddles the fence?
G Newman,
Godwin. You lose.
This, from the last graf of Friedman's column
The antiwar left is wrong: however mangled was the Bush road to war, it is a war for the values of our civilization
goes beyond his usual unctuous fatuity into the realm of the truly revolting. The values of our civilization are the very things to which Bush's war represents an affront.
The antiwar left is wrong: however mangled was the Bush road to war, it is a war for the values of our civilization. But the Bush conservatives are also wrong. It can't be won with an "idealism" that is selfish, greedy, arrogant, incapable of self-criticism and believing that all that matters is our will and power and nothing else.
Doesn't Friedman see that the values of the conservatives, currently the values of many in our civilization, are the reasons the antiwar left was against this war in the first place.
Arrogant, incapable of self-criticsm...remind you of anyone..think real hard and look in the mirror, Tom.
I guess, being Tom Friedman means never have to admit that the antiwar left was right!
My values, which I consider American, are not killing people to instill my way of life in them.
They are not saying one thing to justify an act, and then saying another later on.
And they definitely don't justify failure with more failure.
The antiwar left is wrong: however mangled was the Bush road to war, it is a war for the values of our civilization.
Curiously, international law doesn't contain any provision for starting a was "for the values of our civilization."
Sounds to me like Friedman is indirectly calling the war illegal. You know: a crime against humanity.
I wonder why he hates America so much?
Is the remarkably, frighteningly hideous Larry King an attempt on the part of genuine anti-Semites, to stir up Jew hatred? Could people like Stossel, Medved, Friedman and Broder be doing it on purpose?
We were rather of this opinion in regards to politically neutral, pure-hype-turf-war-addicted, materialistically dependent and inescapably ignorant "nigger rape my bitch" dirges (ie gangsta rap) being a Klan project to make black youth decide sounding as stupid and criminal as possible was cool. We still laugh when some imbicile talks about how because of gangsta's "popularity" with whites, young white kids are actually thinking about the Ghetto. On planet earth, gangsta is a freakshow in the worst original sense, a chance to see and hear confirmed direct from the ape's mouth every incredible thing you've ever heard about them. Compare also Cleaver's smashing of the idea that Chubby Checker was some kind of force for social justice. Top it off with the brilliant idea to enthusiastically support racists like Hilfiger and so forth and the "urban market" looks like the kind of foolish, easily manipulated group that would tolerate Sharpton or Farrakhan or any Jackson.
So is it possible that consistantly inaccurate, often ugly, and deliberately hateful Jewish media darlings-we await some Ivory tower escewing con's explanation of how Friedman et al are not Ivory tower intellectuals-are so awful on purpose?
Look at Friedman's openly Nazi drooling over the awesome military power offering to level Serbia. Jesus he's a fucking mess, and sooner or later somebody's going to come away from him and all these "Israel can do no wrong" Jews with the idea Zionazis have pushed for years, that there is such a ridiculous chimera as "World Jewry", and there will be an anti-Semitic reaction the Great Gamers will not be able to control.
If there had been a classy half-time show, the Iraq war was justified. Our half-time shows are not worty of our guys and gals in uniform.
I thought crass half-time shows are what we are fighting for.
He's a maroon.
You know, a few years ago I knew it was possible for a small group of morons to hijack a company and drive it into the ground, as they did where I work.
But I never would have guessed the same would happen to the good old US of A.
Silly me.
Uh, Tommy boy, the "creeps in that Super Bowl show" weren't pushing the war buttons the way you were. Take a minute and review your columns from just a year ago. Don't try to turn your back on your complicity in the clusterfuck you tried to create. Personally, I don't think your opinion means shit to those in command. But you apparently believe that someone lends credence to your half-assed opinions. OK, you asked for it, now you've got it. Live with it. Don't try to pretend that your hands are clean.
Friedman may be a self sering dick, and his last paragraph is a bunch of crap, but the first three paragraphs are right on target.
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.
Some of what he says is true.
I don't want to live in Friedman's america anymore than I want to live in Bush's.
Anyway, I have yet to hear bushco eat crow on WMD's. I'm pretty sure that Rummy was still babbling about stuff we might still find this week. And anyway, it's not their fault!!
What a bunch of assholes.
Calpundit just linked to Jimmy Carter's blog, for which I am so grateful.
Jimmy Carter's values are my kind of American values. He won the Nobel again in 2002 for his Center's work in the last two decades.
If Friedman even remembers Jimmy Carter, he ought to read up on the Carter Center's work, read the 2002 Nobel Speech, and be ashamed of himself.
Meanwhile, our ex-President gives me a good reason to keep on being an American -a Jimmy Carter kind of American.
Atrios, why must you stalk Friedman? In Friedman's world, Islamic countries comprise one giant maddrassa raising disillusioned young suicide bombers and somehow we can justify anything and everything if we just understand this great truth that he has so diligently tried to cram down our throats. Every column he writes is now an anecdote wrapped around this truly simple minded conceit. Apparently we need not worry about the Army of God, or Aum Shinri Kyo because they're not Islamic. By extension, I guess that means we also can't trust Turkey, because although they are secular, the call to violence is probably fomenting just underneath, waiting for that day when Muslims rise up to take over the earth. Whatever.
Shorter me: Friedman is a useless tool.
OT:
Intelligence Failure in Moscow Subway Bombing?
K&Y: You are exactly right. But screwing ourselves in this manner is a Jewish tradition. We don't need any help from the goyim>/i> to do it
I can't help but note that a bhurka (sp?) would have prevented Janet's "wardrobe malfunction"
How, exactly, did the Europeans eat crow about Saddam Hussein? What were they wrong about?
In contrast, the new Maureen Dowd, "Murder Most Fowl", is a charming trifle.
Friedman definitely went tits-up with this column.
Shorter Tom Friedman:
"Sexing it up at the SuperBowl was wrong, while sending Americans and Iraqis to their deaths for trumped up reasons is an example of our values."
Man, I wish I could have a drink!
Shorter Tom Friedman:
I'm a completely controdicary moron. Look at me dance!
There were a few pearls in the article among the swines. The biggest of the latter is the whole idea that in a world teeming with dictators, torture, and violence it was THIS dictator, HIS torture victims and HIS violence that made it ok to have thousands of people die in a war which was waged without any forethought of what would replace the Saddam regime. And what seems to be ready to replace it is the exact opposite of Friedman's message: an intolerant fundamentalist regime, probably not with a lot of respect towards the Western enlightenment values.
Besides, Iraq is over 60% female, and to keep saying that we have liberated the Iraqis when in fact the odds are that the lid will be slammed down on the women and hard, well, gag me with a spoon.
he should really stick to israel.
Anonymous:
Why Friedman? For one thing, Friedman is the winner of multiple Pulitzer Prizes
Despite Joseph Pulitzer's seedy connections to yellow journalism, he did actively fight against private and public corruption in his later years.
To be awarded the Pulitzer prize in journalism is to be recognized for one's steadfast devotion to the truth and to the distribution of said truth.
Certainly there is plenty of media whores who sold themselves out. But as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Friedman has both the recognition and the resources to rise above media whoredom.
Yet, despite everything, Friedman have still sold his voice and pen to big media, and thus betrayed his readers and his office as a journalist.
Hopefully by continually pointing out his faults and how low he has fallen, he can still be redeemed.
OT: Just watch the Bush apologists backtrack... 
http://tinyurl.com/ysvyn
So funny, yet so sad.
The Pulitzer Prize is given to an accomplished writer. It's not necessarily given to a great thinker.
Tonight's epsiode of "Hack" had a strong anti-war message. I know that the show has few fans, but it was nice to see some of these issues aired in a prime-time drama.
Only connection to Atrios is that he's mentioned the show before because it's filmed in Philly.
The peaceniks were right - the chickenhawks were wrong. And it pisses the moronic brownshirt fucks every day of their miserable lives. And they'll do whatever they have to if it means not having to face their complete and abject failure anymore.
(BTW, I'm sending Mr. Friedman the above-mentioned bumper sticker...)
Comedy. Pure comedy. Everything everyone else said plus some (especially K&Y -- why isn't Friedbrainman paranoid about the obvious?).
The bottom line, despite Friedman's schizophrenic posturing, is that he is a Likudnik-Zionist neocon. He stands for, above all else; Israel, first, right or wrong, forever.
His dual loyalty is so transparent, it amounts to treason, especially in view that he uses his pulpit to advocate for the Likudniks, at great cost to his own birth nation. It's also disturbing to know, that there are many more like him in the worlds of media and politics.
I suggest Tom emigrate to Israel post-haste, where he can do his propagandizing with a greater measure of truth. In doing so, at least he wouldn't be harming his own nation. Who's he trying to fool?
I got an idea...why don't we send tommy
back in time and let him cover
"his" holy land. Wait a minute...
Isn't he doing that already...?
Come on people how many
more dots do we need to
connect...
Man, ken & yuri love to play that game that Howard Stern used to call "Blame It On The Jews." Pretty simple & easy, isn't it, huh?
Friedman's more liberal than all of y'all. He's an interventionist. Aren't interventionists traditionally liberal?
I can sympathize with him saying that it was possibly the moral and right thing to do, getting rid of Saddam. And he's so right that the Arab world needs to wake up and reform itself. My only contention is that as a conservative non-interventionist when it comes to foreign affairs, that it wasn't in America's best interest to go into Iraq.
I think the guy's got good intentions, but needs to understand that we can't go willy-nilly into every little cubby-hole in the world to root out dictators.
Hmmmm... I seem to remember him saying that Israel should evacuate all settlements posthaste. Yup. Likudnik alright....
Dear Tom,
Where are the WMD?
Love,
The instant that felon against journalism Jeff Gerth was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, it was forever turned into something of less stature than an American Music Award.
Worthless beyond belief.
Saying that Friedman has a Pulitzer is not a compliment. It means he's just another good establishment whore.
That chickenshit bush is doing the interview taped from the wh on saturday. what a bitch!
Well, this is much more lively.
If you like duck walks and hair shirts.
Personally I always liked rubber bands.
But that's its own hairshirt.
Elasticity is much more lively.
When it bends and stretches.
I never thought that silence.
Would suffice.
Paralyzation is much more lively
Than movement. You can't overstep,
But overstate...
Twice the questions.
i'm a poet and didn't know it. see?
When Tom encourages people to visit CENTCOM if they ever need a morale boost, he fails to mention that only warmongering, intervention-adoring neocon-fellating whores like himself will ever be granted access.
Gary Frazier:
Just because an award or an honor is mistakenly bestowed upon an undeserving maggot doesn't decrease the the meaning of such an award.
After all, Henry Kissinger the war criminal was given the Nobel Peace Prize. But I would still respect other winners of the prestigious award.
My point about the Pulitzer Awards is that: Tom Friedman, as a thrice winner of the award is both well established and well respected to not be a media whore. But he continues to shamelessly sell his considerable writing talent to aid the Propaganda machine that threatens American liberty, and further the cause of human suffering in Iraq. In there lies the tragedy.
Fuck Haloscan, Jesus Atrios, get a goddamn website. You know the people here would support you. Anyway, because Hellscan wasn't working, I posted this on CalPundit's blog. I'm reposting it because it was meant for here. Fuck, it's really hard to get me this angry, but crazy Tommy has done it:
I hate to do this, but I just came from Atrios's site, where Haloscan is having one of its periodic spasms. Yep, no comments, so I have to spout here or I am gonna explode all over the monitor. I just have to say that, with the combination of a complete waste of valuable printspace and intellect, and an out of control ego. Thomas Friedman has produced the worst column that I have ever read, yes the column that had the previous honor was some bitchy thing in the Chicago Tribune in 1980,(maybe 81' I don't remember exactly) a few days after John Lennon's death. The lizard who wrote it stated that he was glad that he was dead, and derided him as the pied piper who led a generation astray (He was, he did, and thank God for that.) And yes, I am a political liberal and have read Cal and Anne and Michael and Charles and anyone of a number of right wingers who have made my blood boil. (Because they were right sometimes.)
Well Freidman has written the most schizophrenic column I have ever read on the war on Iraq. 95% of the column is spent laying out a sad story of our "forgotten troops" and laying the blame squarely on the Bush administration for failed resolve and seriousness, no WMD, no cooperation with allies. Well, I'm thinking, right Tom, so now you are coming to this realization one fucking goddamn year and a half after the wheels started spinning on this whole goddamn sordid war cut out of whole cloth preemptive death affair you overpaid piece of shit.
But of course, Tom takes it one step further, after killing far too many trees to state the obvious, Tom takes his own entrails and wraps them securely around his own neck and in the shortest paragraph in the whole sordid tome, and as an afterthought, states something to the effect that, The anti-war movement was (is?) wrong, because this is, afterall, a war of civilizations.
Well Tom, after reading the columnist from Western Civilization who most needs to be dick punched, I'm kinda nervous about the home team.
That chickenshit bush is doing the interview taped from the wh on saturday.
On the plus side, BushCo is so far gone from reality that there's guaranteed to be plenty of crap in the interview. (See the SOTU.)
Well, that is, unless the interview is about 15-seconds long.
OK , I'm better now, violent images are fading, breathing is more regular. Temples have stopped throbbing. I still think the fucker should be dick-punched. Ahhh...what a relaxing thought.
Relax, shift your gaze to the right of the comment window:
Fill in the blanks: "Four-star cuisine is sexy; beer and nachos is sexier."
Act for love is also good:
"Che gelida manina" is a proven icebreaker.
That icy small hand?
Oy!
Sorry. The sound track goes something like... well, it's very nice. Trust me.
Less obtuse: La Boheme, Act 1.
I'm with Gary Frazier on the awards stuff. If the people who give out an award give it to someone who is clearly undeserving of praise in the field the award is supposed to honor it turns the thing into a farce. The examples of Kissinger is the fools gold standard but in any given year the Pulitzer list provides some pretty good examples too.
The whole awards racket is pretty silly when it comes right down to it. The race for them in journalism distracts people from following important stuff that won't get them a Pulitzer. Awarding so many of them to columnists has warped the profession. Columns should be assigned to reporters who develop bad knees and should be put only the op-ed page. People without a reporting background shouldn't usually have regular columns, though there are a few great exceptions. Even in the New York Times. Political hacks and flacks should never get them, they always turn out to be beltway or statehouse whores. Since the subject usually ruins somone's mind for more serious subjects sports writers should generally be kept in sports.
I think Charles Ives was on the right track when they awarded him one, it might have been encouraging at one point in his life but it was largly an empty gesture.
Oh, yes, Scot Leheigh. I meant you. GE too.
Has it been pointed out yet that Iraq wasn't a war against "religious fascism" until AFTER Saddam was ejected?
FYI, for those sober enough after all the drinking games, C-SPAN will be having a call-in for reactions to Shrimpy's appearance on MTP after the interview is broadcast. It airs at 10:30 eastern in D.C. so the call-in will be after that. Ladies and Gentlemen, start your redialers.
From a discussion of Friedman's editorial at the NYT:
The antiwar left is wrong: however mangled was the Bush road to war, it is a war for the values of our civilization.
Still trying to rewrite the war, eh, Tom? It's the values, right, not the oil? Psst, don't look too close, Tom, or you might notice that the Super Bowl represents our values - kitschy platitudes, greed, Madison Ave. manufactured desire, crass commercialism, Halliburton taking their turn at the trough to rip off the American people. Oh, and that phony right-wing religion that GWB professes. Good PR for the braindead public.
Tom - you should get a real job, like unloading bodybags from Iraq. You won't stink so bad...
Perhaps if we were to mail the picture of the armless boy to Sulzberger on a daily basis he would get it?
The Bush Years: Or How I Put My Reputation in the Shredder"
by Tom Friedman, Colin Powell, Christie Todd Whitman, Tim Russert, et al.
Well, I for one wasn't able to sleep a wink all night anticipating The Interview.
Speaking of NYT sriters, MoDo's column today is pretty good for a change. She goes after Rummy,Tony the Scal, and Big Time in a classic take off!
That should be "writers" of course.
Where is the "bush on MTP" thread?
So far wingers wet dream: it's all about fear and war.
Tommy Boy Friedman is the Eddie Haskell of journalism.
so are you guys watching MTP? What an incredibly tortured explanation about the WMD....
"Saddam had the capacity to make a weapon!"
he keeps repeating the same answers.
That chickenshit bush is doing the interview taped from the wh on saturday.
Unfortunately, this means we'll have to wait to see the best parts of the interview until the next Dick Clark "Bloopers" special.
Friedman: He's usually too bland to get my juices flowing, but this one did it. As a war supporter, he's perfectly entitled to feel guilty for 'not doing his share.' He should volunteer his ugly mustache to replace Saddam's. I did my share in opposing the war in the first place, thank you.
But 'a war on behalf of our values?' Apart from being an illegitimate and illegal concept as already noted above, our values would have been better served by following the route of international cooperation. By now it's clear that the alternative to war, aggressive, intrusive international inspections, was unacceptable to the Administration because they KNEW there were no weapons to be found and were only providing a pretext for our unilateral aggression.
Which of our values is enhanced by that?
No smiles from Russert this time. Bush is crashing and burning. What a house of cards.
MTP isn't on in the DC area until ten-thirty.
A much more respectable hour to start drinking...
jesus he's just babbling.
Seriously though, I usually can't click Bush off my TV screen fast enough. And when I hear his voice on the radio, I always click it off. He's ugly and it's tiresome hearing him speak. But I think there will be some surprises in this interview. Russert can't possibly be a whore his entire life.
Hahahahaha! What a moron.
listening to Bush is PAINFUL. God how am I going to get through another half hour of this?
Remember when we had a President who could think on his feet? Who could answer a question without repeating his talking points over and over and over???
How many times has he repeated "David Kay" in SUPPORT of the war???
We're not seeing Meet the Whore until 9am CST. Don't tell us how it ends....
I've got a thread over on Pandagon, if people are interested.
Tim said AWOL!
Ba boom! Guard service.
"Tim said AWOL!
mac"
Did he phrase it in a way to let Bush cover his ass??
"Did he phrase it in a way to let Bush cover his ass??"
Yeah, but bush fumbled anyway.
What an idiot!
2 cents: Russert is throwing bombs but he is not following up RPGs and small arms fire. Bush runs for cover then on to the next question.
Not on till 10 here. Got to irish up that coffee a bit.
that's about the best we can expect from TR, hadenough.
I give Tim a B minus (so far).
Damn it! Where's Atrios? I want to talk about Pumpkinhead.
Tim is actually doing a credible job. Of course, Bush stays on message: up is down, black is white.
- "Of course I'll open my military records - I did in 2000."
Tim: "Why do you keep cutting taxes if we need to cut the deficit?"
W: "I believe in helping the worker, the small businessman. I want to create jobs."
"But Tim, my tax cuts are working. We're creating a lot of new jobs."
Tim: "But you promised to create over a million more jobs than this by now. Where are they?"
W: "It's just beginning to work!"
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! LIAR!
I call foul! They just slipped in Bush's medicare ad.
he asked him about being a divider not a uniter... nice one Tim.
Bush says he doesn't know why it's that way, "but I'm not gonna change."
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! LIAR!
Anonymous
You should have added his slip about taxes on SMALL BUSINESS. That one was telling.
MTP may not be on in Philly this early.
Just pointed out the Skull and Bones fix being in, bastards.
And someone should add saddam didn't ruin Iraq's infrastructure, Gulf 1 and Clinton did.
I'm watching dog makeovers on the Today Show. : (
Anyone who hasn't seen this, watch Bush's eyes. He will blink when he lies, but mainly he beleives what he is saying. Which suggests either he is out of the loop on the important stuff or is a Pathological liar.
Being right handed he will look right to remember and left to create. On the times he looked left, I could not tell if he was creating, lieing, or listening to the earpiece.
Now I can understand why supporters claim he relly beleives and is honest.
What was up with the Igor head titl?
Here it comes here.....
I refuse to watch this MTP. I won't, because I (like many here) think I could do a better job with the interview. But, is Tim asking follow ups? That's the key: of course Bush is going to blow smoke with the first answer, but you have to bore in through it with the follow-ups.
"Saddam was a madman."
"Yes, mister president, but was he a madman who had ever threatened the USA--not Kuwait, not Israel--the United States? Were his martial capacities not utterly crippled by the first Gulf War and sanctions? How might his be called a 'rogue state' if the evidence is to be stockpiles of banned weapons that didn't exist? Wasn't the utter collapse of the Hussein regime evidence of Saddam's weakness? And, finally, didn't the negligence with which the occupation was planned shame America and lose the trust of the Iraqis? How is this consistent with our democratic and humanitarian aims?"
What was up with the Igor head tilt?
Anonymous | Email | Homepage | 02.08.04 - 9:58 am | #
I think he got that from Cheney...
What about the earpiece? Anyone spot the earpiece?
Sure is swallowing a lot....
You can't see his right ear nowhere from the camera angle from in front or behind.
It just started here.
Terrorists hide in caves.
Why am I watching this? Why.
Hey thanks for spoiling it everyone. I only get to see it in minutes' time. I've got the beer and pringles ready for some entertainment.
Bush commits a truth:
"I don't think America can just sit back and hope for the best from a madman."
Neither do I. Vote ABB!
There's no sense in parsing the President's words after seeing this truly alarming interview. The American people just need to ask themselves: "Is this the image of a leader?"
Rambling, uncertain, evasive... will anyone in the press dare characterize the President's performance in these terms?
Stay tuned.
Rudy will not replace the Chin as Veep, especially since Rudy can't (won't) take orders and Uriah Veep is the one who actually issues them in the Bushboy maladministration.
Asking Bushboy to chuck his alter-ego, mesmerizing pimp, Cheneychins is an idea that could never cross the synapse between his two brain cells.
Damn that Friedman thing was awful awful awful.
The worst part for me (at any rate the point where I began yelling at my computer monitor, an inanimate object) was where he was patting the Kurdies on the head, praising up their cute lil' democracy-ette (complete with "free market"! Friedman you insufferable, monomaniacal ass) and talking about how the dark sinister Islamists are the enemies, whereas we are the friends, of this delicate but lovely freedom flower.
Umm, yeah, right Friedman, tell it to Ankara.
There he goes again...
The antiwar left is wrong: however mangled was the Bush road to war, it is a war for the values of our civilization.
Tommy Boy still won't tell us who constitutes his conspiratorial "anti-war Left." Brent Scowcroft? Anthony Zinni? Rand Beers? Zbigniew Brzezinski? Paul O'Neill? Pat Buchanan? The Turkish Parliament? Vicente Fox?
What a pathetic relativist...
"...it is a war for the values of our civilization."
It sounds better in the original German.
Kulturkampf.
Not to feed trolls but "Likudnik" does not appear in our drug-addled racist rant, nor is it a quality ascribed to any Friedman, and "blame the Jews" is an awfully interesting way to react, considering the rant was about anti-Semites. Needless to say, Jews are anti-Semites to Likudniks, but this recited, brainwashed reaction is the standard pattern. It's nice to think we have contributed to one more chip in the Wall. "Anti-Semite" is that much closer to being a completely meaningless phrase.
I actually thought on balance it was a very good column. The critics are right in pointing out his failure to mention the Bush administration's phony reasons for the war (TF just can't see that yet)
But, he does point out a very true and relevant point, one that we need to hammer home to conservatives. Bush has left the soldiers to fight this war alone. He has not asked the rest of the country to bear any of the burden, other than incur debt. The superbowl half time show was vapid and vulgar because the country is vapid and vulgar, and the administration is leading us into an irresponsible, selfish, self centered new millenium.
A lot of Fried Man's defenders seem unaware that he is ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. He gets something right the way the awful, tortured English of the Times can't deviate too far from Eastern American Standard or nobody would understand it. Giving his fascist ass any credit, when there are so many more qualified and intelligent commentators out there, is like insisting on recognizing a junta as a legitimate government.
K&Y Anti-Semetism is becoming a meaningless phrase becuase Jewish is becoming a meaningless word. If the Zionists get their way Jewish will describe anything but a religion. And among the things it will describe are many things that people may ,in good conscience, be against. Anti-Semetism is hardly ever used to label people that hate the Jewish religion, it is now used to describe people who oppose Israel. Thus Jewish anti- semites. Nothing matters anymore except blind support for Likudnik Israel.
In the future "Jewish" will mean guilt-ridden or unable to be happy, having a harpy-like tendency to complain in writing ("I just want to start a movement"), tied to the entertainment or publishing industry, and/or a (possibly grossly fat) bore hopelessly convinced of one's comedic brilliance. And then you have the Sarah Parker factor-very, very ugly but somehow with guaranteed starlet status. Hell, that's what it means now: if I want to talk to someone about social and personal justice, the debt of forgiveness or the near-worship of ancestors, I claim to be Buddhist! Tibetan and Hebrew are actually rather close, if you've ever seen them, both based on the principle of variations of a simple square, with the vowels added later.
C. Predicts:
If those are the things that it comes to mean, I will consider myself very lucky. I can live with that. I am afraid that Jewish is going to have the same connotations as Aryan.
It will be associated with a doctrine of racial superiority and a willingness to enslave or kill inferiors. Benny Morris (the historian) is an example of Jewish thinking.
What is bizarre is Tommy’s War of Civilization deal, what is the War of Civilization, why do everything have to be something grandiose. Good going Tommy, this is the best way to keep the allies continuing at bay, nobody wants to join on for no grandiose or fantasy predicates and deals.
What is it with these Boobies and their Wah, can’t it just be about logistics and removing a thug, couldn’t it just have been where we said the dude is a rogue. OK, he was our rogue, but now he is no longer and we are gonna bounce his sorry tuchas and please help us, what is wrong with that.
Why do it have to be grandiose fantasy drivel about Crossing The Boobicon, or a Wah of Civilization, these are the exact things that make regular folks start rolling their eyes and thinking these folks are lulus.
They just could never frame the predicate the way it would get folks to sign on. Lotsa folks was all signed on for credible force, for deterrence and for making Saddam comply, what they all rolled their eyes over was they could never figure what the hooey the Bushies were upto. What were they trying to achieve, why weren’t they ready to explore alternative ways to achieve the same goal, and Tommy was right there egging along for the most goofball scenarios, he was like Crazier than you is a good thing, driving without a steering wheel is a good thing, oh really.
Now Tommy is waving his hanky at the allies to bring them on board, we jumped into the Boobicon but now we need others’ help to get over to the other side, then we will chuckle and chortle and take credit for our own brilliant idea after they are stupid enough to fall over themselves to help us, thank you.
.....
Gee, Tommy, can't admit you were wrong, huh?
An exercise for you, Mr. Friedman:
Provide the number of times BunnyCo said that WMDs WERE the justification for invading IRAQ prior to the war versus how many times they said the reason prior to the war was giving Iraqis democracy. Numbers don't lie, Mr. Friedbrain. Concern for ordinary Iraqis was way, way down the list. The numbers will bear this out.
Provide evidence of one instance of any anti-war European leader saying after the war was in swing, "Well, gee, America, you were RIGHT that the war was the right thing to do." They MIGHT have said, "Well, we needed rid of Saddam anyway," but resignation to our folly and finding something nice to say (if one can't say anything else) is NOT the same as supporting that folly.
FOOL.
Characters Remaining:
Commenting by HaloScan
