Are We There Yet?

Doctor: I have some bad news for you. You have six months to live.

Tom Friedman: Well, uh, I guess that's OK as long as we can keep it that way.

FAIR reports that Tom, on the eleventh of this month (5/11/06) said to Chris Matthews, on MSNBC's hardball:
"Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."

FAIR's research showed that this wasn't exactly the first time Tommy boy had made such a prediction. For example:
"The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."
(New York Times, 11/30/03)

"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a UN-approved Iraqi-caretaker government made up of—I know a lot of these guys—reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it. It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?"
(NPR's Fresh Air, 6/3/04)
Besides these three, FAIR found eleven other times Friedman had made such a prediction in print or on the air in the meantime.

TF was once a pretty good reporter in the Middle East, and he had won a lot of credibility for his reporting and columns. He is a student of the ME, and he speaks Arabic and was stationed in Beirut and Jerusalem.

He chose to squander his credibility backing Bush's stupid war, and having done so, can't face his mistake but, like the gambler who can't resist making just one more bet to try to get even. Unfortunately, the country bet with him, and every six months costs another several hundred American soldiers and a hundred billion dollars. He has become a figure both pathetic and despicable - pathetic because his error was well intentioned - despicable because his central failure is the moral failure to face his mistake.

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