Monday, April 19, 2004
Useless Idiot
First, this question: is there an opening I don't know about for a goddam copyeditor on the New York Times? That's the only explanation for this howler from Tom Friedman, on Bush's capitulation to Sharon's Greater Israel land grab:
I'm sure I'll think of Tom's frozen chessboard hurtling across the Negev desert when the first dirty bomb explodes on America soil, and wish that instead of throwing it, Bush had instead broken it up into pretty red and black cubes to make refreshing mint juleps. Or at least ice tea.
Meanwhile, my second question: has Friedman learned not a fucking thing in the last year?
We all remember last year, right? When the answer to any doubters about attacking Iraq was, "But we must invade! After all, the status quo is intolerable! Anything is better than this!" Status quo ante doesn't look so bloody intolerable now, does it?
The single greatest virtue of authentic conservativism is the recognition that the risk of change is always asymmetric: change may make things marginally better, but they can also always get infinitely worse. You'd think a Pulitzer prize winner might have learned this by now. Then again, you'd also think he'd learned how to use metaphor at a 7th grade level, wouldn't you?
So now President Bush has stepped in and thrown the whole frozen Middle East chessboard up in the air. I don't like his style, but it's done. The status quo was no better.
(via NYT)
I'm sure I'll think of Tom's frozen chessboard hurtling across the Negev desert when the first dirty bomb explodes on America soil, and wish that instead of throwing it, Bush had instead broken it up into pretty red and black cubes to make refreshing mint juleps. Or at least ice tea.
Meanwhile, my second question: has Friedman learned not a fucking thing in the last year?
We all remember last year, right? When the answer to any doubters about attacking Iraq was, "But we must invade! After all, the status quo is intolerable! Anything is better than this!" Status quo ante doesn't look so bloody intolerable now, does it?
The single greatest virtue of authentic conservativism is the recognition that the risk of change is always asymmetric: change may make things marginally better, but they can also always get infinitely worse. You'd think a Pulitzer prize winner might have learned this by now. Then again, you'd also think he'd learned how to use metaphor at a 7th grade level, wouldn't you?
