Thomas Friedman finally emerged to face the world on Wednesday. Apparently, the hiding in the closet was much more deep rooted than I'd guessed. All of the women attacking him with purses, all the public ridicule had made him feel that even a baby-hawk like himself needed to write against his one time pin-up Bully Boy.
So he wanted to come out against the Bully Boy. He could have done as someone who'd woken up and realized they were wrong. But that's not Thomas Friedman. Wrong must never be applied to himself. He could have done it by pretending he was always against the war. Thomas Friedman is nothing but a weasel. But the purses coming down on his head must have made him realize that no one would fall for that. So when you're a hawk who self-identifies with the many famous women, what do you do? What do you do, Besides mangling the English language, of course?
You go Nancy Reagan, of course! Hence "Saying No to Bush's Yes Men" which is Thomas Friedman's riff on Nancy Reagan's laughable "Just Say No" campaign that she launched in the eighties and may have reached its most ridiculous moment when she stopped in to advise Arnold to say no to drugs on Diff'rent Strokes. I don't remember Arnold, Willis or Kimberly getting high -- though I always had my suspicions about Mrs. Garrett being crocked to the gills. But there was First Lady Reagan advising Arnold of the evils of drugs he'd never done when she should have been pulling actors Todd Bridges and Dana Plato to the side and having a non-touchy-feely moment with them.
Like Nancy Reagan cautioning potential buyers while her husband's Iran-Contra scandal allowed the CIA to flood the streets of America with drugs, Thomas Friedman's more worried about the surface. Which is why he wastes everyone's time on the cabinet of the Bully Boy. Like Nancy Reagan's nonsense that the drug issue could be solved by just remarketing, Thomas Friedman appears to think 'dickering' over strategy -- war pornography -- instead of addressing the very roots of an illegal war -- a pre-emptive one that acted as a WMD to society's understanding of "just wars" -- is somehow offering a critique. Instead of addressing the sad realities of the illegal occupation, Thomas Friedman prefers to treat it all as a lost ball game that could have been "won" if only the quarterback had utilized a different play in the fourth quarter.
Putting on his shiny black sweat suit -- he swore he'd seen Ashley Judd wearing something similar but I know I saw Rosie O'Donnell wearing it -- he was ready to face the world Wednesday morning. Shocker of shocker, he even showered! Those looking for WMD might consider standing downwind of my husband Thomas Friedman. It not nuclear weaponry, but it's certainly some form of chemical attack.
As we went on a walk -- me trailing a few feet behind every other block at Thomas Friedman's request & crying out, "Isn't that Thomas Friedman!" -- he waited for the mass adulation he was sure to come his way. He got five handbags smartly introduced to his head and a lot of jeers.
Later, back home, he decided he might have jumped the gun.
"It takes a few days for writing as deep as mine to sink into the public's understanding," he offered in between spraying canned cheese into his open mouth.
"Thomas Friedman, you stupid idiot," I said -- yes, things have truly changed in our marriage since our last fight, "when you write 'When you centralize power the way Mr. Bush did, you alone get stuck with all the responsibility when things go bad' you not only make yourself useless, you also reveal gross stupidity. Lying a nation into war was not because Bully Boy didn't surround himself with non-yes-man, it was because he wanted the illegal war. Historical record demonstrates that, demonstrates that he wanted it before 2002, he wanted it before 9/11 and he wanted it before he stole the presidency."
Thomas Friedman eyed me cautiously for a moment. During those brief seconds, I thought possibly he'd actually heard me, that somehow I'd finally succeeded in penetrating the fog of sogginess that surrounds his brain.
"Betinna, I've been thinking," Thomas Friedman said dramatically. "The highlights are all well and good but possibly I should go completely blonde?"
In his brain, he already has.
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