Utterly Delicious? Don't be silly. Everyone's excited, a new place, a new beginning. Nicky and Mrs. K are excited. Thomas Friedman's acting excited. I'm the only one who is realistic.
Of course we ended up at the usual 2nd Avenue deli. Mrs. K was upset but as I told her at least it wasn't the French bakery.
She didn't look any happier when Thomas Friedman pulled out his latest column, "Behind Every Grad..." and began reading from it.
"People loved this one!" Thomas Friedman gloated.
Two things about that. "This one." Of course they loved it compared to the last one where he insulted the French, Americans and the poor. After that low blow, he could have written about how he has to trim his nostril hairs twice a week or else it looks like his mustache has horns and they would have loved it. Second thing, it was published that day. He hadn't taken a call, he hadn't been online. How does he know that "people loved this one!" when he's spoken to no one?
Now, yes, an old woman did stop us on the way into the deli and say, "I know who you are."
She, of course, added, "And I hope you don't get confirmed," before spitting on the ground and storming off. Because, like so many, she thought he was John Bolton. I keep telling him it's the mustache.
So he reads the first paragraph:
You don't expect to learn much at a graduation ceremony - especially if you're the commencement speaker. But I learned about a truly important program at the Williams College graduation last Sunday.
Mrs. K leans in and whispers to me, "Could he be more in love with himself?" so right away I know she doesn't read his columns regularly because, obviously, he can be and often is.
By the time he's summing up with how the greatest skill is to learn how to learn and the best way to learn to learn is to love to learn, even the people at nearby tables have a glazed look about them.
His voice booming, he stood with a flourish, tossed back his head and cried, "How about it?"
Mrs. K looked around at the silence greeting him and then politely clapped which caused others to clap.
"They love me," he whispered as he took a bow.
Now I don't know about that because while I was waiting in line for the ladies' room later, a woman stopped me to tell me how wonderful I was.
"A lot of people act embarrassed when they're with someone with special needs," she said patting my shoulder. "Good for you that you're just happy to spend time with your friend."
Needless to say, I didn't repeat that to Thomas Friedman.
When I got back to the table, Nicky K was pulling out a piece of paper and about to start reading. He waited for me to sit down.
This is what he read:
Editorial: Connect the dots
You too can be a well informed American, provided you read the British press. But maybe things are picking up? The Associated Press has a story today entitled "Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing" and we suggest you read it. It's by Charles J. Hanley and here's an excerpt:
John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved. A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani "had to go," particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
Bolton fired Bustani, in 2002, because Bustani wanted to put chemical weapons inspectors in Baghdad. Now that might seem strange to you if you rely upon the American mainstream press.
If your news sources are a little more well rounded, you may however remember The Sunday Times of London's Downing St. Memo which reveals, in 2002, that the United States is willing to shape and distort to push forward on the invasion of Iraq. The same invasion that Bully Boy and his minions were saying they had not yet decided to go forward with.
How does Hanley sum up the Downing St. Memo (yes, it's mentioned in the article)? Thusly:
An official British document, disclosed last month, said Prime Minister Tony Blair' agreed in April 2002 to join in an eventual U.S. attack on Iraq. Two weeks later, Bustani was ousted, with British help.
Here's something the memo says that's not in the AP account:
Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
The Sunday Times of London published that memo May 1, 2005. What did they publish last Sunday? Michael Smith's "RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war." From the opening of that article:
THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.
The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make "regime change" in Iraq legal.
Is a pattern emerging? A pattern that even the mainstream press must begin to notice?
We think it is. But we wouldn't bet the house on it. We've shared our feelings/concerns on the mainstream press in an essay in this edition. The way we see it, the press has plenty to address. It's just an issue of whether they want to or not.
Hats off to BuzzFlash, once again, for finding the Associated Press article and drawing attention to a very important article. As always the place we flocked to when finally getting ready to compose this edition's editorial.
Oh my goodness, it was that Third Estate Sunday Review crowd. I remembered how furious Thomas Friedman was about that when he found them last time. How he howled and screamed.
I look over and he's grinning.
"Buzz flash," he says slowly. "Well that's as good a nickname for me as any other."
Mrs. K looks at Nicky and then tries to explain, "Wait, Thomas Friedman," he makes her call him that too, he thinks he was being nice by not insisting she preface it with "the great," "you're not --"
"Not what!" he demands glaring at her.
She looks at Nicky, then at me. We're both sending looks that say "Don't poke the dancing bear."
"Uh," she says haltingly, "you're not going to finish those potato pancakes?"
Laughing, he slides them over to her.
While I'm sitting there trying not to scream because the most I ever get is my own glass of water (check) and a forkful of something he offers me.
But better he should try to flirt with her, and refer to himself as a regular "Diamond Jim Brady" for sharing his left overs, than he should go into one of his fugue states. I doubt the deli would be as understanding as I am about those.
Quite the contrary, some busboy would probably kick him in the ribs a few time, get no response and then start hollering, "Hey everybody, I think John Bolton's had a drug overdose!"
So what ever gets you through the deli, you know?
But that doesn't mean that yesterday I didn't have some fun. When I was online, I went to that site and printed up their latest editorial. I handed it to Thomas Friedman and said, "It's those kids that gave you the nickname."
Grinning proudly, or at least self-importantly, Thomas Friedman cleared his throat, stood and began reading aloud:
Editorial: Mainstream press, do your damn job
MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make it legal.
This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.
The above is from Michael Smith's article in today's Sunday Times of London ("Ministers were told of need for Gulf war 'excuse.'") Yes, Michael Smith again. Yes, The Sunday Times of London, again. And yes, thanks to BuzzFlash for making it the big story on their website this morning.
Last week, we said it was time to connect the dots. Forget connecting them, there are so many now that it's a pointalism work of art that says "We were lied into war!" That comes as no surprise to many of us who were against the invastion/occupation from the start.
But is the clampdown on these revelations from our media not just deriving from a need to kiss Bully Boy ass, but also from the fact that the mainstream media was complicit by acting like cheerleaders instead of reporters?
We have no idea. But we know that wishing the revelations coming out of England wouldn't reach American eyes and ears is a futile desire.
The people are ahead of the domestic press on this issue. Unless the mainstream press desires to become completely superfluous it better begin to do it's job.
In case anyone's forgotten, the role of the press is to inform the public.
Oh that might not be as fun as fluffing for the Bully Boy. It might not provide the "access" that results in so many false claims (but don't it feel good to have Dick Cheney name-check you on Meet the Press!). It might mean, shudder, that the administration might say some mean things about you.
Well those are the breaks. You're in a profession you elected to go into, a profession that is supposed to demand accountability from those in power.
Want to be trusted, do your damn job.
As it stands, you've become the person who denies your spouses drinking problem while the whole neighborhood's whispering about it. Sure we nod to your face and act like we believe you, but as soon as you walk off, we shake our heads and wonder "Who does s/he think s/he's fooling?"
It's become the elephant in the room.
And the press better start addressing it because it's an important topic and, at least right now, we have internet freedoms that China doesn't. We can read papers from outside the US. We can find out what's being reported away from the clamp down.
There is no excuse for a New York Times D.C. editor to claim that the Downing Street Memo may not be verifiable or any other nonsense. Forget that no verification was ever needed for the witch hunt of the Clintons, any second year journalism student knows you report something you're not sure of as, "Others are saying . . ."
We know you're familiar with that method. You use it all the time when you cite unnamed officials. Here you can cite The Sunday Times of London. "The Sunday Times of London is reporting . . ."
There's no excuse for the clamp down. It's making the press look like something worse than cheerleaders. It's making them look like liars with their heads stuck in the sand (or up the Bully Boy's butt).
William Greider titled a book Who Will Tell the People. We know The New York Times is at least familiar with the title because they used it in an editorial not all that long ago. So we ask the mainstream press, who will tell the people?
This isn't esoteric information. It's not arcane. And obviously, the clampdown hasn't prevented Americans from learning about it. You can fluff it all you want (and you have) but the word is getting out. Word will continue to travel. With or without you (to cite a U2 song). But if it continues to travel inspite of you, despite you, you better find something better than "arm chair media critics" and "circle jerk" to slam the new information sources because it's the "arm chair media critics" and the "circle jerk"ers, Bill Keller, that have been doing the job that mainstream press is supposed to do.
A month later, you can finally kind-of, sort-of address the Downing Street Memo that The Sunday Times published May 1, 2005. When will you address it fully? And when will you inform your readers and viewers of other revelations?
When will you address Michael Smith's "RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war?" From the opening of that article:
THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.
The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make "regime change" in Iraq legal.
And do you have plans to explore Charles J. Hanley's Associated Press article entitled"Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing?" If you missed it, here's an excerpt:
John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved. A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani "had to go," particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
Your silence has been embarrassing. Your continued silence will render you useless. With you or without you, the word is getting out. To the print press, we ask what happens when your readers realize that you've been playing clamp down? Don't they pay for your paper because they expect to learn what's happening in the world around them? To the electronic press, we ask what happens when your viewers find out that all the chatter about Michael Jackson and other dubious topics have filled the airwaves while real news, news that matters, has been ignored.
Ava and C.I. caught The Chris Matthews Show while they were writing their review.
Chris Matthews had time to address the very important, we're sure, topics of Hugh Grant and John Kerry's college grades. While we're sure there were plenty of chuckles from some viewers, you think they'll be laughing when they realize what you've been sitting on?
We don't think so. We think if the press wants the public's trust, the press needs to do its job.
That's not been happening. You can whine about the mean old bloggers all you want, but you're trashing your own image far worse than any blogging "arm chair media critic" in the midst of a "circle jerk" could. (To use some of Bill Keller's favorite phrases.)
Do your job. Report. Do what you were trained to do.
Sitting down, I waited for the explosion.
There was none.
"Well?" I asked finally.
"I like those kids."
"You do?" I responded in surprise.
"Yeah, they give that namby pamby Bill Keller hell. And how can I not love a group that's nicknamed me buzz flash. It's like I'm a super hero. It's like I'm Flash Gordon."
That's what living with Thomas Friedman is like, it's all about him.
