Short timing with Thomas Friedman...

Modern conservatism could not exist without "liberals" like New York Times columnist Tom Friedman.
Lauded as a foreign policy whiz by both left and right, Tom still has this weird religious veneration for the holy free market's power to work positive transformation. This makes him palatable to the rightical chic media elite who do most of the opinion formation in the U.S. Tom is "okay" because no matter what his foreign policy views are he's ready willing and able to keep them in lock step with the conservative cult of free enterprise.
Now, mind you, he's not one of these libertarian whackjobs, rather Tom truly believes with the bliss of the faithful that free markets somehow safeguard liberalism. Taken by itself you can see where this becomes sheer religious dogma wherein people are somehow empowered consumers before they are democratic citizens. As I've said before our opinion elites worship embarrassingly tattered and smelly little fetishes these days with the fervor of 19th century zulus. Some of those idols include peace, guns, Jesus the GOP's in house savior, and in Tom's case the free market, holy protector of women's rights and the environment.
And it's this selfsame divine "market" that will somehow transform Iraq into a secular democratic paradise.

Someone once said that democracies prefer markets but markets don't necessarily prefer democracies.
You'd think a smart fellow like Tom Friedman would get that...
Nonetheless, thwe New York Times' columnist was on Imus this morning, most of his discussion with the aging and repulsive I-man was preempted by a military press conference in the Middle East. The gist of Tom's line was, he was fine with the war in Iraq and hoped something good would come of it when Saddam was deposed. He was hopeful that destroying Saddam and his regime would create a kind of "truth zone" in the region one that'll be the basis for "opportunities" for young people and a chance to set free the private sector based energies of the plain people.
Yup...I'll bet he just can't wait to read Rumsfeld's draft of the new Iraqi constitution, surely that will be a document for the ages. Tom can no doubt see the Iraqi intelligentsia sprawled around the Tikrit Starbucks reading all about it in new Farsi language edition of the New Republic.
Tom is gonna look awfully stupid when Iraq ends up being run by an American General with some sorry assed flunkie from the Iraqi Opposition as his frontman. Tom is gonna look pretty dumb if we end up parlaying with some bloodthirsty tyrannical general who has deposed Saddam in a coup...
No matter what Tom is riding for a fall here, chiefly because like the fervent worshippers of other threadbare secular phenomena he's got it in his head that his revered thingie is the universal answer to all life's problems.
Who can blame him though? Millions of dollars are spent every year to flood the mediaverse with paens of praise to the free market...who am I to blame Tom Friedman if he honestly believes such rubbish?
It's not like anyone has ever gone to any lengths to bombard the culture with any counter arguments.
Alas now more than ever we need that debate...because modern conservatism is dying in this country.
Yup you read that right, what was once a simpleminded collection of small-gummint-big-profits-no-taxes type nostrums has degenerated over the past twenty years into a bloated power worshipping cult. The so called conservative movement long ago stopped believing in small government and freedom for the individual and a host of other once hallowed precepts. Nowadays the wreck of the movement is largely dedicated to punishing the vanishing American liberal and otherwise keeping it's options open. It is kept afloat mostly through the day to day ministrations of a weird native class of editorialists and partisan hacks who define "debate" as demonizing the liberalism and who de-legitimize any real discussion of public affairs with anyone. After a full twenty years of "conservative backlash" in power and out the main accomplishment of these vengeful buffoons has been to make shrill ideological warfare an all weather year round sport.
This is the new and all conquering overclass, and they can self perpetuate with the best of them.
They claim to be contrarians but this is hype and nonsense based on the scope of their power.
But it's all coming to an end my friends be assured of that.
Not only that, but the "democratic spirit" is fast expiring in this nation as well. It is a quaint and much sneered at thing that asserts that a free people can govern themselves well enough without descending into anarchy or dictatorship.
A sensible opinion can no longer be found in "the wild" and must now be considered an endangered species.
Reason is being hunted to extinction in this one proud republic....
At best, the modern punditariat might preach that a free people must have the constant guidance of a new strata of thinkers and explainers ergo partisan hacks, brutes, and intellectual bandits.
But the democratic spirit? Nope it takes second place to military affairs, profit opportunities, whining about taxes, and the punishment of liberals.
These are the values that insinuate themselves into every public debate, is it any wonder a poor naive fool like Tom Friedman is overwhelmed?
Sick
Demented Typical...