Those of us old enough to remember Vietnam may also remember what happened when Walter Cronkite came back from a reporting trip to Vietnam and openly questioned our strategy and chance of success.
Reportedly, LBJ turned off CBS News and remarked "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America. "
Not, of course, that Tom Friedman has anywhere near Cronkite's standing (or brains); but as one of the most visible and enthusiastic cheerleaders for the Mess O'Potamian Adventure, he can certainly serve a comparable function.
So, with Friedman's column today, titled TIME FOR PLAN B, I submit that Bush has officially Lost America.
Details below the jump.
Of course, the NY TImes has hidden Friedman behind their paid subscription firewall; but here are some fair use snippets.
[http://select.nytimes.com/...]
It is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are baby-sitting a civil war.
When our top commander in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, tells a Senate Committee, as he did yesterday, that "the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it," it means that three years of efforts to democratize Iraq are not working. That means "staying the course" is pointless, and it's time to start thinking about Plan B -- how we might disengage with the least damage possible.
But the administration now has to admit what anyone -- including myself -- who believed in the importance of getting Iraq right has to admit: Whether for Bush reasons or Arab reasons, it is not happening, and we can't throw more good lives after good lives.
Missing from this editorial, unfortunately, are the simple words "I was wrong." Instead, Friedman re-hashes his reasons for supporting the war in the first place, then blames Bush for incompetently executing Friedman's noble vision.
One gets no sense, reading this column, that he is at all haunted by the oceans of American and Iraqi blood spilled in this debacle. Nor is there the slightest hint of an apology to those few brave souls who DID oppose the war, and had their patriotism, and their motives, and their general intelligence, questioned by Friedman and his ilk.
Look in the mirror, Tom. I imagine that Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert can live with themselves, and can sleep well at night. Can you?
On the subject of Krugman, he is also excellent today in an attack on "non-partisan" dems and organizations.
His column is entitled "Centrism Is For Suckers", and the last para is priceless:
The point is that those who cling to the belief that politics can be conducted in terms of people rather than parties -- a group that also includes would-be centrist Democrats like Joe Lieberman and many members of the punditocracy -- are kidding themselves.
The fact is that in 1994, the year when radical Republicans took control both of Congress and of their own party, things fell apart, and the center did not hold. Now we're living in an age of one-letter politics, in which a politician's partisan affiliation is almost always far more important than his or her personal beliefs. And those who refuse to recognize this reality end up being useful idiots for those, like President Bush, who have been consistently ruthless in their partisanship.
[http://select.nytimes.com/...]