F Bomb

And rightly so. Rising Hegemon puts Tom Friedman in their sights and lets loose a laser guided diss:

In today's attempt at an ass-saving do-gooder lecture, Friedman, while admitting indirectly that the decision to go into Iraq was a disaster waiting to happen continues the "clap louder" defense of saying "it can still be saved".

His opening paragraph ...

Conservatives don't want to talk about it because, with a few exceptions, they think their job is just to applaud whatever the Bush team does.

Fair enough, but then this:

Liberals don't want to talk about Iraq because, with a few exceptions, they thought the war was wrong and deep down don't want the Bush team to succeed.

The latter, of course, is the defense that will be writ large by the Republicans as the entirety of their ill-conceived plan reaches the critical mass of complete failure. "It was because the liberals didn't clap loud enough".

Kiss my ass.

From its conception, to its planning, its selling, its implementation, reimplementation, redefinition, re-reimplementation, reorganinazation, and ultimate its retreat, this has been entirely a CONSERVATIVE PRODUCTION.

But here is a fact Tom. We liberals take no joy in being right, because you don't celebrate being right when its evidence is more than 1,700 Americans dead, tens of thousands wounded, as many as 100,000 Iraqis dead; with more than $300 Billion in costs eventually going down the toilet, and our Nation's reputation in tatters we liberals find little to celebrate.

I couldn't say it better myself.

Friedman goes on to claim that the war is "still winnable,"--which is apparently news to the folks fighting it. And while giving Donald Rumsfeld a good solid kick is both appropriate and even kind of fun, the fact is that this war wouldn't have been "won" even IF the "Powell Doctrine" had been applied. We might have been able to put a lid on the problem for some time, but eventually the pressure cooker would have blown open, with the same result (see Iran, Mr. Friedman).

Friedman concludes with what amounts to the John Kerry plan--more troops, more international participation, etc. etc. Nice try. The wingnuts who got all juiced up at the prospect of a good old fashioned war aren't exactly breaking down the doors at the recruiting offices (that why we call y'all CHICKENHAWKS, wingnuts). The rest of the public has either, to use Tom's phrase "gone shopping," or otherwise tried to tune out the grim numbers of casualties resulting from Operation-Chickenhawks-are--Chickenhawks.

The war is OVER. Team Bush LOST it, and in losing, squandered the lives of our soldiers, the lives of the Iraqi civilians who've been killed, the money spent from the national treasury, and the reputation of the United States. I for one refuse to let that be forgotten.