I read an absolutely brilliant New York Times editorial today.
April Fool’s.
Once again, the Jayson Blair Times manages to achieve that rare combination of certitude and idiocy. The trifecta would include malice, but neither Bob Herbert or Maureen Dowd wrote it.
While Herbert and Frank Rich are deserting Pinch Sulzberger faster than Kyle Busch at Bristol (for readers of the JBT, that is a sports reference. He races cars), unfortunately some of their staff refuses to retire.
Thomas Friedman is often cited by liberals as the final authority on everything, which means he knows nothing and agrees with them. His most recent pablum involves falling all over himself to make sure Barack Obama does not get hurt by the kinetic conflict in Libya.
Like many liberals, Mr. Friedman would make a great suicide bomber. He jumps on the grenade to protect his beloved leader. I would compare him to a Secret Service agent except that he does his work publicly without providing any actual value.
Thomas Friedman spent this past week explaining how complex the Middle East dynamics are. Because the situation is a tinderbox, Friedman has a plan. He will not call it a plan, but it is the entire Democratic Party platform from President Obama on down to every one of his liberal supporters.
“That’s why I am proud of my president, really worried about him, and just praying that he’s lucky.”
Praying that he is lucky? Are you kidding me? That’s it? Praying the guy get’s lucky?
Praying to get lucky is something teenage boys do with their prom dates. It is not a foreign policy solution.
Praying for the best is a way of saying there is no Plan B, or even a Plan A.
There is nothing wrong with praying after taking action. Yet prayer by itself should be the dessert or the pre-meal snack, not the main course.
Mr. Friedman is a walking, double-talking contradiction of liberal nonsense.
“I don’t know Libya, but my gut tells me that any kind of decent outcome there will require boots on the ground…”
“Those boots cannot be ours.”
“But I am deeply dubious that our allies can or will handle it without us, either. And if the fight there turns ugly, or stalemates, people will be calling for our humanitarian help again. You bomb it, you own it.”
What makes Mr. Friedman’s solution so nauseating is not that too many leftists blindly follow him. It is that President Obama and his cabinet have this as their strategy.
We now have the “Friedman Doctrine,” which was the 2008 Obama campaign. Find a bunch of twits to chirp “Hope, change, yes we can!” There is no second verse.
“Which is why, most of all, I hope President Obama is lucky. I hope Qaddafi’s regime collapses like a sand castle, that the Libyan opposition turns out to be decent and united and that they require just a bare minimum of international help to get on their feet.”
Children play with sand castles. They collapse out of thin air. Real castles do not collapse without real pressure.
“Dear Lord, please make President Obama lucky.”
Now for the adult reality check. If you want to remove an evil dictator, remove him. That’s it.
Liberals gleefully point to the struggle to turn Iraq into a democracy. What they will never concede was that the military action to remove Saddam was a total success. General Tommy Franks developed the plan. President George W. Bush signed off on it. Three weeks later, Saddam was gone.
Afghanistan has been a struggle in terms of creating democracy, but again George W. Bush allowed the military to route the Taliban in about three weeks.
Barack Obama is scared because Colin Powell once said that “if you break it, you own it.”
Earth to liberals: We will own Libya no matter what. No matter how far we try to crawl under French skirts, the entire world knows that this is going to be run by the Americans. We will get the credit or blame in every single scenario. Since we are going to end up helping to rebuild, we had better break the bad guy and get him out.
When Barack Obama made it clear in his prime time speech that he would not seek to remove Khadafi, many liberals figured that the rebels would handle it with help from NATO. 48 hours later the rebels are in retreat and Khadafi is winning. As for NATO, what the heck are they doing? Nobody knows.
Mr. Obama may still get lucky. After all, the man has been lucky his entire life. Yet luck runs out.
George W. Bush prayed that his missions would succeed, but only after clearly stating the purposes of those missions and letting his generals and soldiers carry out those missions with precision.
Barack Obama has the luxury of a media that cares only about him. Humans being massacred in the Middle East is irrelevant. His 2012 reelection and implementation of health care and cap and trade is what matters to the left. Mr. Friedman is praying because his god is a false prophet, and the world knows it.
The solution in Libya is very simple. Find Khadafi. Kill or capture him. Shove a predator drone up his hide and be done with him. As George W. Bush said about the enemy, bring him in “dead or alive.”
The left can sneer at such blunt talk and use of brute force, but it worked. Rebuilding was hard. Getting rid of the bad guys was much easier.
The rebuilding cannot begin until the bad guy is taken dead or alive.
Mr. Friedman should demand that Mr. Obama get off of his moral high horse, take the bad guy, and b*tchslap him.
Or Mr. Friedman can be the worst stereotype on Earth, that of a weak liberal ringing his hands and praying that a man with no idea how to get the job done gets lucky.
While Mr. Friedman prays for his precious boy president, Libyan civilians pray that Americans stop them from being slaughtered.
I pray that Mr. Friedman one day grows up. Then again, if he did he would no longer be a liberal.
I fervently pray the mission succeeds despite liberal political leaders handicapping our fine military.
eric
I was listening to intelligent radio as I was driving about today and caught this (http://m.npr.org/news/Politics/134999272?page=2) amazing quote from Dana Rohrabacher (of all people!):
“I’ve from day one given this administration fairly high marks on the way it’s handled this crisis. I’m not like the Republicans who are just seeking a way to be critical of President Obama.”
I 150% agree.
Kudos to Rohrabacher.
JMJ
I admit to being biased. When I hear, “Kill the Jews” and “Death to America and Israel”, AND “kill the Infidels” (Christians), coming from a moderate crowd in AFghanistan, I wonder why the effort?
I mean, these people want US dead.
And what provoked the anger? A nut case pastor in Florida, who
dislikes Muslim radicals and Islamics…tried by a jury of peers, Islam.
They found Islam guilty. The penalty was to burn the Kordan.
This seems more like something out of Disneyland, or Charlies Sheens antics, than anything real, substantial, worthwhile. etc.
Several thousand Afghans joined the mob that then stormed the UN
building..murdering 7 and beheading 2 of them.
The worlds media had a hayday our of this..of course forgetting
the Jew thing and Israel and blaming the pastor for the violence
that ensued.
I mean, it isnt as if the Muslims dont ever use symbolism in their
hatred of US, the West and of course we Jews worldwide.
Just listen to some of their Friday night sermons..or read their
clerics remarks.
Oh, they are such angelsl. Do Muslms have angels?
But I give Obama some credit on this one. He didnt mention the
burning of the Koran in his condemnation of the attacks? Is he reforming?
A far as Iraq (and Afghanistan) and Libya…isnt it time we packed it in?
How many more burials at Arlington do we need? How much more gelt must we spend in no win civil wars…? Saddam is history. Al Qaeda have moved on. Moammar did btw, agree with the Brits and French to
dismantle his nuke program..doesnt that count for something? All along
they knew of his regimes brutality, corruption, etc.
Hey guys, Libya has 6.4m people, the size of Israels population
absent its ultra-Orthodox. It has 650,000 square miles to Israel’s 8,000 (soon to be less if the UNSC votes to eliminate the state and make the
area Judenrein-rid of Jews).
It’s oil wealth is about 4 trillion at 100.00 barrel..with 110b in foreign currency. Its 50b year GDP is all oil. It has substantial investments n
Europe and supplied the continent with 20% of its oil. ( all okay until
a ragtag group of opportunists decided to duke it out with their leader).
Hmmm. NATO will take over most of the fighting. Sure, and my name
is Ahmad.
Hey, Obama, hows bout this.
Israel and Libya agree to a defense pact. Israel received 100b in petro dollars…and supplies Libya with 3m Palestinians, 100 F-15s and F16s
and pilots, 2 brigades (Givati and Golan), which Moammar will use
to defend his nation..from all enemies. ( I cannot imagine NATO winning
a dog fight with we Jews). The Pales get 10,000 square miles of land.
along the coast
Walla! the Pales have a home among their own kind, with seaports
and land to grow (more than the W. Bk). Libya is 4 times the size of California. Israel is the size of one-half San Bernardino County.
I would allow yearly prayers at the Dome of the Mosque in Jerusalem
however.
Israel could, release its 12,000 prisoners ( per the demand of Abbas)
to live, work, play and procreate, in Tripoli or wherever they want.
Everyone is satisfied.
And Obama reveals his creativity..his doctrine..
Hey Thomas Friedman, what do you think? Are you still critical of
the settlements as the cause celebra of the M.E. conflict?Do you
think that two nations with McDonalds restaurants never fight?
To Friedman: go back to San Francisco, and Berkeley, Please.