The Worm Turns: Friedman Tears Into Bush

Tom Friedman has always tried to be the serious adult about Iraq. While at first I found his notions of what we might do to be admirable (if wildly optimistic), I quickly grew to resent his inability to understand that all his high-minded defenses of this war were wasted on a pack of charlitans and profiteers.

Well, Friedman may be many things, but he's not a total idiot. Today's column:

Yes, that's true. I still believe that. My mistake was thinking that the Bush team believed it, too. I thought the administration would have to do the right things in Iraq -- from prewar planning and putting in enough troops to dismissing the secretary of defense for incompetence -- because surely this was the most important thing for the president and the country. But I was wrong. There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so. It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West.

There's more... oh yes, the worm is turning. The whole column is worth reading, and it should mark the final act of for the liberal hawks.