Friedman Transfers More Anger

As we have seen before, Tom Friedman is transferring his anger at the deceptions of the Bush Administration - which made him look foolish for backing the Iraq War for its stated purposes of WMD disarmament - towards other aspects of its policy. Last week we had the incipient catastrophe for the poor and working classes that is being referred to as the "White House Budget" (also well-covered by Kristof). This week: the failure of the Administration to plan for postwar Iraq. Speaking of the heroic volunteers who serve in our nation's armed services, Friedman says:

We owe them so much more respect, so much more sacrifice of our own and so much better leadership from a Bush team whose real sin is not hyping Saddam's threat, but sending Americans to remove him without a plan for the morning after.

That's nice, Tom. I guess the fact of the Administration's hyping of Iraq's WMD - where by "hyping" I mean, of course, "declaring that they present an imminent threat to the security of the United States when in fact they do not exist" - has nothing to do with the relative disengagement of the Super Bowl-watching populace from the ongoing sacrifices of the war; nothing to do with the Administration's lack of preparation for the must-be-waged-now-at-any-cost war's aftermath; and nothing to do with their refusal to part with even one cent of the surplus-era "Bush tax cuts" to the wealthy 1%.

Hmm. I guess you're right, Tom - if we forgive them their "hyping" of Saddam then everything else pretty much falls into place.