Thomas Friedman drinks the Kool-Aid -- again

[quaoar]

He's now the darling of the right-wing blogs:

http://newsbusters.org/node/4188

For the second time in two days, Mideast expert and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has taken a position in agreement with the Bush administration, and contrary to his bosses. You have to wonder how long Friedman can get away with this and continue to keep his job.

As reported by NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein, Friedman was on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday suggesting that the increase in violence in Iraq of late might be an indication that al Qaeda knows it’s losing. In addition, he intimated that the absence of follow-up terrorist attacks on America since 9/11 is likely due to al Qaeda’s focus on winning the war in Iraq.

And this morning on Face The Nation he was a panelist and denounced opposition to the port deal as "absurd."

He just can't let go of his grand illusions about the Middle East. This is the guy who not long after the war started was advocating NATO membership for Iraq.

And here is an excerpt from an interview Friedman gave:

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=7022

You don’t go from Saddam to Jefferson without going through Khomeini in the Arab world, because there’s nothing between the palace and the mosque. There is no civil society at all. So when the palace breaks either by election or invasion, you go straight into free fall, and we have to accept that’s the reality. We have two choices. We can preserve the palace, as we’ve been doing for 50 years, knowing that it’s actually creating a context that’s actually producing more of these angry, frustrated, unemployed young men or just say, you know what, let’s try to liberalize the mosque. Once it has the burden of responsibility, who knows how they’ll behave. And so if I have to have a choice these days, then that’s what I’m going to go for.

Essentially what he is saying is that we should let radical Islamic extremists take over in the Middle East and see what happens. Sort of like a social experiment.

[Mythsaje]

1. "Exposing and combating liberal media bias."

Is he kidding or what?

And right after that, he's going to go out and slay a dragon the size of a grayhound bus with a soda straw.

Liberal media bias.

Sheesh.

What a load of hooey.

[Lithos]

2. He is quite ignorant

There is NO way the violence is going to stop even if the US has to create it. We need it to justify much of what we are doing in the area.

L-

[Erika]

3. Islamofacistpigs were coined by Rush & Savage

Ann Coulter says we must kill them if they, the Muslims, won't convert.

Now where do liberals play in this.

[TabulaRasa]

4. He didn't drink the Kool-Aid

He is the Kool-Aid Pitcher Man. Just another fatuous shill. That he's ever referred to as "liberal" or "left" just tells you how fucked our country is.

[lvx35]

5. God he's an idiot.

you know what, let’s try to liberalize the mosque. Once it has the burden of responsibility, who knows how they’ll behave.
Okay Friedman, you go "liberalize the mosque". You go create a new religion from the precepts in the Koran. Define it for the arabs, because God knows they want westerners to do that. :sarcasm:

[Nomen Tuum]

6. Friedman is a fifth columnist.

His loyalty is with Likud, and not with America.

I'm waiting for the Screw York Times to outsource his job to India and then see how that ass feels when he's unemployable...

[Elidor]

7. Friedman is the Cliff Clavin of the pundit class

Talking out of his ass, blissfully unaware of how incredibly stupid he sounds.

[TexasLawyer]

8. In the run-up to the Iraq war

Friedman was a French-bashing, Bush-loving, war pimp. I don't read his columns any more.

As Steven Colbert would say, Friedman is "dead to me." Except I'm not being tongue-in-cheek.

[HughBeaumont]

9. This doll-sized troll needs kicked in his ass.

Pro-Iraq war, pro-job offshoring, pro-Bush, pro-Port Sale . . . The most shameless of all neo-libs continues to go tits-up for the Cabal.