Thomas Friedman's Perfect Record

Dan from New York:

More than a few conservatives (e.g. here and here) jumped for joy today after reading St. Thomas Friedman's NYT column today (sorry, I don't link to, or read, NYT weasels). I am told Tommy admits that Bush was right on Iraq and democracy is truly taking hold there - reversing an earlier ruling. What these right-of-center chumps don't understand is that they, Iraq, Bush and democracy have just been been given the kiss of death.

In the latish 80s St. Thomas wrote a piece for the Sunday Magazine opining Israelis moving to the West Bank were non-ideological yuppies looking for affordable homes and a short commute to their jobs inside the Green Line. Ergo, he went on to say, the Palestinians wouldn't consider them a threat and settlers and Arabs would live happily ever after in Levittown-by-the-Jordan. I'm not sure whether Friedman snagged a Pulitzer for that one or not, but a few months later Intifada #1 broke out, and a brilliant journalism career was launched.

If these same conservative scribblers could have shorted Friedman's foreign policy prognoses from that point on, they'd be writing posts from their yachts off the Mediterranean instead of sitting in some cramped bedroom pecking away on an old Lenovo laptop and staring out at a brick wall. Even in a job where being right is optional, Tommy eventually realized the jig was up. After years of producing flops people might begin to notice. Why do you think in the latter years he's stopped making a fool of himself on the Middle East in favor of making a fool of himself on the "Green" mania, globular warming and the environment? And like clockwork, that's now on the rocks.

Point being, by using Mr. T as proof Bush was right about Iraq, the odds are both the former president's legacy and that benighted country are headed for oblivion - and soon. Sorry, cons, but it's too late to do anything about it now.