Reason no. 392...

...why Thomas Friedman should not be taken seriously. Via Atrios this is a 2003 interview with him that if you listen to today, you get the feeling that you are listening to an insane man. He is our modern day "Quiet American." To sum up his logic from this interview for why we needed to invade Iraq - it was to burst a "terror bubble" (his term) that had built up during the 90s. Or even shorter, 'we couldn't just sit there and not blow stuff up!'

Here is a good quote from about 5:00 in that shows his skill at being a serious, thoughtful person.

What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"

You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow?

Well, Suck. On. This.

Okay.

That Charlie was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.

He goes on to say that, well duh I knew they were lying about WMD - I wish they had not done that - but my cause was so good that it was worth it to let them trick every one into war because ultimately it would be worth it!

He should have been laughed out of town for this but it is 2007, and four years later he is still one of America's predominant thinkers.


UPDATE: Here is the clip I was talking about: