NYT Friedman: Insulting Our Troops, and Our Intelligence

[grytpype]

Wow, Friedman really opens up on Bush in the NYT.

Times Select required: http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/opinion/03friedman.html

Insulting Our Troops, and Our Intelligence
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.

They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry — a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, never ran away from combat service — and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.

Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do.

They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Mr. Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president.

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to the U.S. military than to send it into combat in Iraq without enough men — to launch an invasion of a foreign country not by the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, but by the Rumsfeld Doctrine of just enough troops to lose? What could be a bigger insult than that?

... much more like this in the article, read it if you can...

[Beetwasher]

1. Et Tu Thomas?

Friedman can still go fuck himself w/ a chainsaw for all I care.

Yeah, yeah, occasionally he gets one right, but he's still a major douche.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Yes, he's a major douche, but this is a really excellent piece.

I'll take it wherever I can get it.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

2. POW BANG SMACK

Good one from Friedman

[billbuckhead]

3. "Rumsfeld Doctrine of just enough troops to lose?"

I got to give Tommy credit for that one.

[grytpype]

11. He stole it from Molly Ivins.

[agates]

5. I think Tom must have watched KO last night

[upi402]

10. we need to see more like KO

and we might climb out of these dark decades.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Here's some more -- maybe the best part:

Everyone says that Karl Rove is a genius. Yeah, right. So are cigarette companies. They get you to buy cigarettes even though we know they cause cancer. That is the kind of genius Karl Rove is. He is not a man who has designed a strategy to reunite our country around an agenda of renewal for the 21st century — to bring out the best in us. His “genius” is taking some irrelevant aside by John Kerry and twisting it to bring out the worst in us, so you will ignore the mess that the Bush team has visited on this country. And Karl Rove has succeeded at that in the past because he was sure that he could sell just enough Bush cigarettes, even though people knew they caused cancer. Please, please, for our country’s health, prove him wrong this time.

Let Karl know that you’re not stupid. Let him know that you know that the most patriotic thing to do in this election is to vote against an administration that has — through sheer incompetence — brought us to a point in Iraq that was not inevitable but is now unwinnable.

Let Karl know that you think this is a critical election, because you know as a citizen that if the Bush team can behave with the level of deadly incompetence it has exhibited in Iraq — and then get away with it by holding on to the House and the Senate — it means our country has become a banana republic. It means our democracy is in tatters because it is so gerrymandered, so polluted by money, and so divided by professional political hacks that we can no longer hold the ruling party to account.

It means we’re as stupid as Karl thinks we are. I, for one, don’t think we’re that stupid. Next Tuesday we’ll see.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

7. Keith O. had quite an earful for fearless leader on this topic

last night.

It was great!

Good night and good luck!

[Bill Bored]

8. You mean this guy?:

Mission Accomplished

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

9. Yep, here's another pic of him...

[enough]

12. k&r

[BlueEyedSon]

13. Nope, I still hate him (TF).