Why Does Tom Friedman Still Have a Job?

New York Times foreign policy analyst Thomas L. Friedman finally has come to the conclusion that George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq -- which Friedman enthusiastically supported with the clever slogan "Give war a chance" -- wasn't such a good idea after all.

"It is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are babysitting a civil war," Friedman wrote. "That means 'staying the course' is pointless, and it's time to start thinking about Plan B -- how we might disengage with the least damage possible." (NYT, Aug. 4, 2006)

Yet, despite this implicit admission that the war has unnecessarily killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 2,600 U.S. soldiers, Friedman continues to slight Americans who resisted the rush to war in the first place.

Twelve days after his shift in position, Friedman demeaned Americans who opposed the Iraq war as "anti-war activists who haven't thought a whit about the larger struggle we're in," presumably a reference to the threat from Islamic extremism. (NYT, Aug. 16, 2006)

In other words, according to Friedman, Americans who were right about the ill-fated invasion of Iraq are still airheads when it comes to the bigger picture, while the pundits and politicians who were dead wrong on Iraq deserve pats on the back for their wise analyses of the larger problem.

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