reality-based educator

Atrios put up this transcript of NY Times columnist Tom Friedman on The Charlie Rose Show on May 30, 2003. Atrios pointed to the following Friedman quotation as proof Friedman is a moron, but you really should watch the whole show (available here) to see just how wrong Friedman was about the war, both pre- and post-phases:

I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.

...

We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big state right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.

...


What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"

You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow?

Well, Suck. On. This.

Okay.

That Charlie was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.

Watching the entire performance, all I can say is - what an arrogant, pretentious, silly, little person Friedman is.

It's a shame his editors at the NY Times and all those bookers on the Sunday chat shows don't have the brains or the ambition to go back and actually listen to and/or read the truly idiotic things Friedman has said in the past about both the Iraq war and the overall WoT and finally pull the plug on him.

Seriously, he should be writing for Richie Rich comics, not a column for one of the premier American daily newspapers.