i just read the Matt Taibbi article, OMG it's fantastic, thanks.

Why is it a surprise? Tom"the world is flat" Friedman and Judith Miller are the reason the New York Times has lost any credibility when it comes to Iraq or the so-called "war on terrorism"

FRIEDMAN'S UNSPOKEN PREMISE IS THAT THEY HATE US BECAUSE THEY'RE STUPID.

UN, SORRY TOM, THEY HATE US BECAUSE WE WERE STUPID ENOUGH TO ELECT BUSH, AT LEAST ONCE, (UNLESS THEY STOLE OHIO TOO!).

I'D SAY WE HAVE ABOUT ONE "FRIEDMAN UNIT" TO SEE IF THERE IS ANY CHANCE TO CHANGE THIS PICTURE--IF WE ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO ELECT MCCAIN, THEN THE HATRED WILL RATCHET UP A FEW NOTCHES, AND MORE HELL WILL EVENTALLY BE PAID--IF OBAMA GETS A CHANCE, SO DO WE--AND IT MATTERS--UNIVERSAL HATRED CAN TRANSLATE INTO A WHOLE VARIETY OF HARMS.

BUT OF COURSE, FRIEDMAN JUST DOESN'T GET IT. WE'RE NOT ARGUING AN ABANDONMENT OF THE WORLD TO A RUSSIA OR CHINA, JUST A RETURN TO A NON-MILITARIZED FOREIGN POLICY, AND AN END TO MEDDLING IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO PLEASE THE NEO-CONS/AIPAC, AND THEIR MEDIA ENABLERS.

EVEN ROBERT GATES YESTERDAY RAISED THE SPECTOR OF A TOO MILITARIZED FOREIGN POLICY--DUH

Someone less lazy than me should calculate the number of pro war and anti-war guests Mr. Rose has had. (Public television?)

BTW, someone named get real at Digby suggested the monikers Suck on this Friedman, Salad Bar Brooks and Chickenhawk Kristol for NYT columnists a while ago.

Kitt, the Daily Howler link made my week.

Gotta' go, I'm missing Burn Notice

Tom Friedman is Jewish and as a Jew being hated all over the world is the 'status quo.'

So, he's confused as to why murder, genocide and mayhem committed by the US (like Israel) should make the US unpopular.

When Putin leaves the Czeh and Polish ABM sites 'a pile of ashes,' in 2012 he will finally get the point.

TheAZCowBoy

Tombstone, AZ.

A few people have been accusing me of being someone else and calling me a right toll. LOL. I guess your not reading my letters. I'm a pragmatic progressive. However after reading several posts in her over the past few weeks, it seems to me there is not much different between the Zeolots on the far left and the far right.

There is a video playing on the right site Just Say No Deal which is an anti Obama site. Very dark, stupid but amusing. It sort of reminds me of the mind set by a few in here. I wonder what Glenn would think of the videos violation of copy right law.

In a recent television interview with Charlie Rose-published in the Forward of June 6, 2003-Friedman confesses that "Israel was central to my life as it was to all my friends." He was reminiscing about his years in high school. "Today," he laments, "I'm probably the only one of my friends who is still emotionally involved in Israel."

http://tinyurl.com/6ha5hr

Who woulda thought? Lol!

The aggressive, domineering and self-righteous nature of US foreign policy did not begin seven years ago. It may have always been implicit to a small degree, but it became overt following the collapse of the only countervailing power, the Soviet Union. During the nineties America for the first time went overseas to attack a country that had not nor could or would attack us. Like the conquest of Iraq, this war was based on lies, sham diplomacy and propaganda about "humanitarian" motives. In order to complete an ongoing policy to dismember Yugoslavia, the US, in violation of the UN charter, the US Constitution and the War Powers Resolution, for 78 days bombed Yugoslavia to force her to divest of her sovereign territory, the province of Kosovo. This air war, directed almost entirely at Yugoslavia's civilian economic infrastructure and killing about 2000 civilians, was whole-heartedly supported by liberals, first among them Thomas Friedman. Among his quotes: (I paraphrase) "If Slobo won't comply we'll bomb his country back to 1989, If he still won't we'll bomb em back to 1889. If he still won't we'll bomb em back to 1389." (the year of the battle of Kosovo between Serbia and the Turks) Elsewhere the disciple of globalization said,"the war over Kosovo shows that you can't have McDonald's without McDonnell Douglas." Friedman and his allies inside and outside government advocated an overtly terroristic policy; to force a nation to make political concession by threatening to destroy or actually destroy the civilian economy, the means of subsistence and its way of life. From his tone one senses that Friedman does this not just from a sense of political necessity, but with great relish. He seems to take great vicarious pleasure at the mass misery and mass murder caused by "his" war machine. Yet I suspect he would never personally even hurt a fly. Yes, but even Hitler loved children and animals. What a pathetic, sick man.

Mugabe, his police, his army, his judiciary may operate in a country which is much smaller than the United States but that is completely irrelevant to its citizens, thousands of whom are now refugees in South Africa and elsewhere. Perhaps you haven't seen the television pictures of what's been going on (and any cameraman or journalist who managed to get information out of Zimbabwe in the last several months did so at the risk of his/her life).

I have no idea what the people of Asia think of China and I suggest that both you and Tom Friedman are just as clueless about that. There seems to be an implicit belief that America was universally loved throughout Europe until the advent of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of them. I'm sorry to tell you that this isn't so. Hollywood may have presented a flattering image of the United States for many years but intelligent and informed people are well aware of American imperialism. There are too many contradictions in American foreign policy for many Europeans to worship at your feet. JFK and Kruschev were equally confident that they were entitled to push the nuclear button because of Cuba (another small country as Zimbabwe is), Allende didn't suit American strategy so he was "kaput". This has been going on for years but now it's out in the open.

I'm not a Communist sympathiser as I'm far too mouthy to support any system that clamps down on freedom of expression but Western propaganda was so successful that I had the idea that all Russian women were grim-faced and built like bulldozers until the fall of the Iron Curtain allowed freedom of movement and we could see women like Sharapova playing at Wimbledon. If the Russians have elected Medvedev that's their business; after all, Americans elected George W. twice. It might sound unkind to quote "A plague on both your houses" but the inclination is there from time to time.