Booman Tribune

Idiots Should Lose Their Jobs

by BooMan
Sun Sep 30th, 2007 at 11:21:39 AM EST

This morning, Tom Friedman cribs my material by saying:

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

I don't really mind the lack of attribution, even though I've said this repeatedly. I do mind Friedman's next point because it violates common decency and basic logic.

I’d love to see us salvage something decent in Iraq that might help tilt the Middle East onto a more progressive pathway. That was and is necessary to improve our security. But sometimes the necessary is impossible — and we just can’t keep chasing that rainbow this way.

It's precisely this notion that America has a necessary foreign policy need which is simultaneously impossible to accomplish that set us on the disastrous course.

It was Friedman that famously told Charlie Rose that America needed to respond to 9/11 by going into an Arab country, knocking down doors, and telling the residents that if they thought we would tolerate total strangers (to them) flying airplanes into our buildings, they could 'suck on this'.

Four years later, Friedman admits that 9/11 made him stupid. It made a lot of people stupid. But Friedman does not appear to be cured. He is slowly awakening...he recently said there should be no more Friedman Units in this war. But anyone that can say that it is necessary for us to attempt the impossible is an idiot.

And when the impossible involves getting over half a million people killed, trashing America's brand, and bankrupting our country?

Idiots should lose their jobs.



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What's funny is that I honestly did not see Atrios before I wrote this.
by BooMan on Sun Sep 30th, 2007 at 11:37:50 AM EST
It makes you think Americans have forgotten to take their "Fiber" pills for the last six years.
by americanforliberty on Sun Sep 30th, 2007 at 11:48:16 AM EST
Third time's the charm, my mom used to say. Let's do Iran!
by Bob In Pacifica on Sun Sep 30th, 2007 at 12:01:59 PM EST
Let's not forget W's litter remark about "a Crusade Against Terrorism"
by americanforliberty on Sun Sep 30th, 2007 at 12:05:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
More of the same from the Moustache of Misunderstanding.  What fried his brain?  Red-hot vanity?  

Knut
by Knut Wicksell (b_didnn@hotmail.ca) on Sun Sep 30th, 2007 at 05:59:23 PM EST
I have to give Friedman credit for realizing how stupid, childish, and neoconservative (yes, that's redundant) he was back in 02/03.

BUT, this guy obviously hasn't figured it all out as BooMan points out.

It irks me that reasonable people still quote his 'World is Flat' book like its gospel. He was so forgiving of neoliberal globalization, and still is. What happens when he writes his retraction, "The World is, in fact, Round"?

by liberaljournal on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 04:22:38 AM EST
"The horizon made me stupid."
by BooMan on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 10:05:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]


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