Here's your hat, what's your hurry?

Tom Friedman tells us he’s back. The New York Times columnist would have us believe that his sabbatical while writing a book has given him new perspective on Iraq. Here’s the shocker – he thinks the Bush administration has screwed things up.

Shocking? Hardly, since the only time Tom has given any slack to the Bush administration is after it won its stunning, three-week victory against Saddam Hussein, making Friedman’s protestations of the disastrous quagmire to do so inoperative.

He states in his column, “This war has been hugely mismanaged by this administration, in the face of clear advice to the contrary at every stage…” Why do I think he means HIS advice? If you look at the laundry list of things Tom has suggested, you see that the advice Bush has failed to heed has all the marks of Friedman’s political point of view, his remonstrance to the contrary notwithstanding. The choices Tom Friedman has provided over the months since our remarkable victory underscore his liberal viewpoint.

Does that mean that things are going swimmingly in post-war Iraq? Of course not, any more than they did in China, when the Japanese surrender left 190,000 armed Japanese troops in a land they considered under their boot, or in Germany, where the “Werewolves” tried to wreak Nazi havoc on our troops. But history and logic are never high on his liberal radar. Emotion reigns supreme there.

The choices Bush has made are manifestly not political, but in the long-term interest of this country, and of Iraq, for that matter. The war began on 9/11 when the US was attacked. When it is won, sometime between the span of the Second World War and the Cold War, we will have a clearer view of leadership of this president, and the views of Mr. Friedman will sound as wrong-headed as those columnists who heralded the choices made by Neville Chamberlain.

Tom, take another break. You could use it.