"getting rich by being wrong"

Want to learn something about the state of the US media brain trust? This is some seriously eye-opening stuff.

Read about war profiteers Thomas Friedman, Peter Beinart, Fareed Zakaria and Jeffrey Goldberg: punditry gone awry.

Since among this group, I loathe him the most, I will feature an excerpt about Tommy F of the New York Times:

GETTING RICH BY BEING WRONG: Tom Friedman

Pre-war position: Re-reading Friedman's columns from the six months or so prior to the invasion of Iraq can induce vertigo. Unlike many of his hawkish colleagues, he grokked all the vital details of the situation. He understood that there were alternatives to war ("Bottom line: Iraq is a war of choice"). He understood that the WMD casus belli was for the most part a convenient line (cautioning that it was merely the "stated reason" for the war, and early on calling out Bush and Blair for "hyping" the evidence). He took a shine to the idea of regime change, but seemed clear-sighted about its low chances for success ("Setting up the first progressive Arab state ... would be a huge undertaking, though, and maybe impossible, given Iraq's fractious history"). He grasped that the consequences of failure would be dizzying ("if done wrong, the world will never be the same") and that to succeed, at the very least, would require exceedingly deft execution on the diplomatic front as well as the military one. Yet he also noted that the Bush Administration was incompetent in at least the former respect, and recognized them as essentially a bunch of pathologically insensitive and hyperaggressive bumblers ("we are talking about nation-building ... [and] the Bushies seem much more adept at breaking things than building things").

So even a Webelo-grade logician knows where to go from here, right? You connect the dots and conclude that while it would be very nice to get rid of Saddam, it would also be stupid and dangerous.

But somehow he still managed to come out in favor of the war. And if the whole thing weren't so tragically misguided, his reasoning would be worth a chuckle. Says Friedman: "something in Mr. Bush's audacious shake of the dice appeals to me." A nice ballsy gamble of a war. Sure, it could throw the region into chaos, bankrupt this country, and dye the fertile crescent red with the blood of civilians; yet an audacious war is like a red lollipop—who isn't powerless to resist it?

Career status: On top of the world. Before the war he was charging less than $40,000 to give a speech; these days it's a rumored $65,000. And afterward the audiences are encouraged to scoop up copies of the World is Flat, his paean to corporate globalism that has been on the Times best-seller list for 91 weeks. The royalties certainly help defray the costs of a $9.3 million mansion in Bethesda and a second home in Aspen that—if the local phone book and Google Earth are to be trusted—is a massive chateau with its own lake on the swanky northern side of town, where Prince Bandar has his monstrosity.

Friedman was feted by Queen Elizabeth in 2004, and also received a lifetime award from the Overseas Press Club. Though he was probably the most influential pro-war voice in the American media, he still hasn't had to own up to his mistake. If you ask him about it—as Don Imus did recently—he quotes a few misgivings from his columns to demonstrate that he was quite aware the war could be a fiasco and a bloodbath. But let no one say it wasn't audacious.

Read the whole thing here. Then tell me, as some commenters have done, that the media has nothing to do with it.

No, don't tell me. If that's what you think, you're too stupid to talk to.

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Meanwhile, did you know that on the day the Resident announced the escalation of the war, there were more than 1,000 separate demonstrations against it in the US? There were actions in all 50 states and in the poor non-state, DC.

What's that you say? You didn't know that? Because it wasn't reported on your TV or in your local newspaper?

(So which is it now? (A) The peace movement only happens on the internet, (B) A bunch of people waving signs is not a peace movement, or (C) Stop blaming the media?)