Quicker than he cry out "Gut check time!" and faster than he can string together a whole host of half-baked Mc-Ideas on how to have it his way in a flat world, Thomas Friedman finally managed to prove to people passing by that he wasn't John Bolton, but that he was possibly something far, far worse.
There we were, Wednesday morning, on our way to the Second Avenue deli he liks so much, he was talking real fast, rubbing his belly while he spoke of, "Rice pudding! Rice pudding! Betinna, I'm going to get me some rice pudding!" when it finally happened.
"Aren't you Thomas Friedman?" an elderly woman asked approaching us.
I don't know who was more shocked, Thomas Friedman or me.
This never happens. Trust me, this never happenes. When he's announced for a book signing, the two or three people that turn out for it generally know he's Thomas Friedman but despite all of his talk of "a cabbie from Bejing," "an elevator operator from Belfast," "a taxidermist from Belgium," no one ever recognizes him.
They mistake him for John Bolton a great deal. It's the mustache and I have tried and tried to get him to lose it. He thinks it makes him look distinguished. I think it makes him look like he's part of the Ant Hill Mob in search of Penelope Pitstop, but hey, I'm just the wife.
So that a woman recognized him was a huge deal. Even the born with a finger on the bragging trigger Friedman was at a loss for words for about thirty seconds.
And that's all it took for her to rolls up her newspaper and hit Thomas Friedman over his big snout with it.
"You're a stupid, stupid man!" the elderly woman spat before walking out.
It was like something out of The Runaway Bride but when I said that to Thomas Friedman and told him he was like Richard Gere, that only angered him more.
"Oh and who's Julia Roberts? Judith Miller!" he whined. "I am America's sweetheart! I am! I am!"
Not today, Thomas Friedman, not after "Let's Talk About Iraq" which seems to have angered everyone from the five burroughs of NYC and beyond.
We never made it to the deli. After about the twenthieth person accosted Thomas Friedman on the street, we hailed a taxi and went home. Apparently some days, the only thing to do is sulk in the safety of your shorty robe which is exactly what Thomas Friedman proceeded to do.
"Why do they hate me!" Thomas Friedman sobbed.
"Come now," I said trying to point out the obvious, "You've given them good reason."
Thomas Friedman glared at me, asked me if I'd been taking my vitamins but then went back to focusing on himself.
"It's not my fault that stinking liberals have no plans!"
"Now Thomas Friedman, you do not know that. That is why you are in trouble. You go off half-cocked making your half-baked statements in your half-assed way and it comes back to bite you in the ass. Just because your paper doesn't report on something doesn't mean it has not happened."
"That is it!" Thomas Friedman hollered. "It is because of the paper! It is not because of me! I am still the toothsome sweetheart of America! I am just trapped in a stupid vehicle like when Julia Roberts had to promote I Love Trouble!"
"Thomas Friedman," I said evenly, "no one forced you to endorse that we go into Iraq with overwhelming force. There are people who think we do not belong there. That we shouldn't be there. That having made the mistake of invading and occupying we should now do the right thing and get the hell out so that the Iraqis can decide their own fates."
"Nonsense! They are a backwards people, not unlike yourself. What would they do if we did not tell them what to do?"
Thomas Friedman is never wrong. It is always everyone else in the world. Living with Thomas Friedman, that's one of the first lessons you learn.
By late afternoon, after he's spent the entire day watching Passions, The Young and the Restless and Green Acres while eating his beloved cheese in a can directly out of the can and getting most of it on his shorty robe, Thomas Friedman was a mess, a sobbing mess.
Thinking maybe this was the time to attempt to reach him, to provide him with a dose of reality of what the left did and did not think, I logged onto the computer and hunted down "Should This Marriage Be Saved?"
I'm thinking maybe this will help him understand what some on the left think and how insane his remarks were. But he keeps interrupting over and over with "Who's Sandy?"
"Sandy is Iraq!" I scream after the fourth time I've had to stop to explain to him. "The speaker is the United States! Sandy is Iraq! The marriage is the occupation! Jesus, you're supposed to be a writer! Can't you follow an analogy!"
"You don't have to be so huffy," Thomas Friedman says miffed, smoothing the edges of his shorty robe.
"Look, this is the part that's about you. Do you want to listen?"
"Me?" Thomas Friedman asks excitedly. "Oh read it! Read it, Betinna!"
So I do:
"You've got to make it work!" that's what I get told. And like last Sunday my friend Tommy, well he's not really my friend. I don't even care for him. I don't know why he's always showing up telling me what I need to do. I'm not so sure he even knows what he should do himself. But he always issues these proclamations like some coach from Hoosiers morphed into Dr. Phil with a dash of Sally Jessy Raphael. Or something.
So Tommy's blustering to me, "Improv time is over. This is crunch time. This marriage will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile." I don't even know what that means! I don't think he knows either. I would've asked him but I was afraid that he'd babble on some more, you know?
I mean, I just wanted to get away from Tommy. Trust me, a lot of people feel that way. It's not just me. I was all, "Uh huh, later Tommy."
Then I bump into Nick. Now Nick seems like a good guy. I don't doubt that he cares, but we're always getting into disagreements because Nick is the type who makes these "universal truth" statements but often doesn't have all the facts. I'm sure you know someone like that. (Hopefully, you aren't someone like that!) He's the type who'll say, "No one ever cared about foreign athletes until the missionaries went ___" wherever. And you can say, "Woah, Nicky! That's not true. The Olympics have been going on for decades! Longer even!" But he's just read something about some missionary and he's convinced that history has just begun or something. He means well. That's what I try to remember, that he means well.
So Nick weighs in with, "If you leave too soon, Sandy will fall apart. There are areas that aren't strong enough to take this, areas in Sandy." Or like, "Sandy could sink into this really dark period and do you know about mortality rates in a situation like this, because I do!!!!" And then he's giving these examples that he just read and I'm already tuning him out.
I pay attention when I hear him say something like, "Granted, my argument for staying the course is a difficult one to make to you when your immediate concern is your own life. There's no getting around the fact that if you stay, you will be unhappy at best. And at worst, who knows . . ."
I think he's going back into morality rates. I don't know. I nod and stand there thinking about what I need to pick up at the grocery store.
"I also have to concede," he begins and that gets my attention because I always forget he uses that language not to make a real concession, but as a debating ploy, "that this friend of yours who's saying you should just end it may in the end be proven right: perhaps you and Sandy will stick it out and even so end up divorcing? After squandering both of your lives, both of your dreams."
Nick means well, but he really loves the sound of his own voice, so I hurry away while he's still yammering on about how the marriage has left Sandy "desperately vulnerable and it would be inhumane to abandon . . ."
I'm just trying to get back home, you know? Wow! That works on so many levels. Talk about insight. Anyway, so then I bump into the Billy Goat Gruff, you know the type. I'm sure there's at least one who lives in your neighborhood. Willie's always screaming, "Turn down that music!"
"Do you get it, Betinna!" Thomas Friedman exclaims interrupting me.
I sigh thinking that at least he's understood, he's grasped an idea that never made the pages of the paper he works for.
"I was top-billed! Not Nicky K! Not William Safire! And Judy Miller isn't even mentioned!"
Thomas Friedman was dancing a little jig on the shag rug carpet, his shorty robe flying up and down as he jerked his body with a kind of energy one doesn't expect in a stocky man of his age.
"Top-billed! Because I am America's sweetheart! I am!"
Want to talk Thomas Friedman? That's Thomas Friedman. From the beginning to the middle to the end, it always has to be about him. He'll never learn anything that hasn't been trumpeted on the pages of his paper and he'll never move beyond focusing on himself.
Ripping off his shorty robe, he ran out into the hall screaming, "I am America's sweetheart!"
I didn't hear of him or from him until nine hours later when the vice squad called. Now I've got to go all the way crosstown to bail him out of jail because he got picked streaking up and down Lexington Avenue.
And that, in a nutshell, is life with my husband Thomas Friedman.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Monday, June 13, 2005
Behind every great ego
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.
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.
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