Today's Idiotic Tom Friedman Quote

Here's our hero doing the whole "compare and contrast" thing between President Ford's funeral services and the hanging of Saddam Hussein last Saturday in his New York Times column that was published today:

How fortunate we live in a country where this (unity) is the political norm, built up over generations.

"Because of our basic unity, we can afford to be divided on specific issues," said Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Case For Goliath." "Democracy is about differences and contesting them in the public sphere, and it only works when there is basic agreement about the fundamentals. We should feel fortunate that we have a democratic history and set of beliefs. Those beliefs can be imported by those who want them and don't have them, but they can't be exported. We can only create a context where others would want to import them."

I don't really have a gripe here with Mandelbaum, though it would have been nice if he'd stated these truisms back in, oh, I don't know, say...maybe 2002, before we blew the crap out of Iraq, instead of last month in this new book of his, which Friedman is helping him promote here.

No, what I really want to get to is this...

The raw tribal theatrics of Saddam's hanging highlight just how few of these values Iraq has imported. We are to blame for not creating the security needed to for those values to take hold. But not enough of our Iraqi allies have risen to the occasion either. It was our closest Iraqi partners who oversaw Saddam's tribal hanging. We have to look that in the eye.

(By the way, for some interesting reality-based commentary on the hanging, I recommend Gwynne Dyer's column that appeared in the Inquirer today.)

Who's this "we," Friedman? Our troops? Our totally cowed politicians who fell for Bushco's sick and twisted con, or media whores like you who embraced it perhaps more exuberantly than anyone else?

You're a shameless, propagandistic bastard, you know that? What you thought would be a happy little excursion to overthrow someone you didn't like, show force to Syria and Iran on behalf of Israel and cop a whole bunch of oil in the bargain blew up in all of our faces, despite the pleadings and entreaties of many people including your humble narrator who stated categorically that none of this would happen. And now you just can't wait to spread the blame to everyone except yourself where it squarely belongs.

May you one day find forgiveness from godlike souls with the faith and courage to look beyond your unspeakable words and actions, because I can tell you categorically that you won't find it here.

And by the way, here's a column that truly puts Friedman in his place.