RAH RAH RAH

Digby is all over today's Friedman column.

And for your extra reading pleasure, I know it's an oldie but it's a goodie, The American Prospect's Tom Friedman parody (from digby's comments). Here's a taste:

I was changing planes at the new airport in Jakarta the other day, on the way to Stockholm from Vladivostok. Three young Bangladeshi boys sat in the passenger lounge, watching The Power Rangers on satellite TV. Their mother--garbed in the traditional sari--talked to her cousin, a migrant worker who sold German-designed Walkman knockoffs in Hong Kong, on a shiny new Samsung cell phone. Sitting to one side of them was a young Chinese émigré on his way to Toronto to work for a software company, and on the other a business-suited Rastafarian making a connection to Bratislava. Meanwhile, a couple of Tuareg tribesmen sat cross-legged in front of the ticket counter, cooking yams over a flaming mound of ticket stubs.

What's my point? I don't actually have one--but opening my columns with strings of clichéd cultural juxtapositions really cuts down my workload. You see, since the Cold War ended, we've gone from superpowers to spreadsheets, Pershings to Pentiums, the Berlin Wall to suburban sprawl, olive trees to Lexuses. Are you ready? Because the whole world is changing. Unless you are one of the eight-tenths of humanity who at this moment are either hungry, illiterate, or field-stripping an AK-47, in which case I'll get back to you in some future column.

Hehehe.

My take on today's column? Even though his metaphors are stupid, as well as borderline-shameful, I think his readers (particularly left-leaners whose support for an Iraq war has been tenuous up to this point) will be more affected by reading the column than Friedman was by writing it. The short, short version of his column is: "Ok, the Bush administration has fucked up on just about everything foreign policywise up to this point, but this is a really great idea if they can do it right!" I hope Tom knows how ridiculous that sounds. Next thing you know, he'll turn up wednesday with a column arguing that the Bush administration will be successful in an Iraq war/occupation/etc because "Hey, they're due".

Thus, in a strange way, his column helps a lot more than it hurts. It's helped some moderate supports of war, as well as others on the fence, to see how dubious this really is. For example, in the blogosphere, CalPundit is jumping ship, Yglesias has questions, and The Agonist has many doubts. Still, Friedman, you remain on probation, until you strangle that childish cheerleader voice inside you.