“We”?

WTF do you mean “we”?

I am glad Tom Friedman wrote what he wrote today in the NYT. No kidding. Yes, I am. It’s worth a read as a historical curiosity, because in it Friedman says in big, clear language that voting for Preznit Drinky McTipsy would be a fantastically stupid thing to do.

And that Preznit Drinky McTipsy’s strategeries in Iraq have been fatally idiotic and insulting to our troops.

But it is how he says these things – and what he omits – that is most interesting to me.

Here are a few, tiny snips transcribed from “Insulting Our Troops, and Our Intelligence”, with emphasis added and taken out of order for effect.

See if you can spot the card he's trying to palm:

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.

They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry …and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.

Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do.

They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years …

Everyone says that Karl Rove is a genius. Yeah, right. So are cigarette companies. They get you to buy cigarettes even though we know they cause cancer. …

Let Karl know that you’re not stupid. Let him know that you know that the most patriotic thing to do in this election is to vote against an administration …

Let Karl know that you think this is a critical election, because you know as a citizen that if the Bush team can behave with the level of deadly incompetence it has exhibited in Iraq …

That’s the first part. Hmmm. Notice anything?

Now here are a few more snips, also transcribed and non-sequential. See if you can tell what’s missing…

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to the U.S. military than to send it into combat in Iraq without enough men …

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in uniform than sending them off to war without the proper equipment…

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in uniform than to send them off to war in Iraq without any coherent postwar plan …

And what could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in Iraq than to send them off to war and then go out and finance the very people they’re fighting against with our gluttonous consumption of oil? …

Well shit, Tom, since you ask, what could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in Iraq than all of this?

How about sending them off to die in this murderous welter of Republican incompetence and hubris for a lie? A lie that has catastrophically injured and insulted our credibility around the world for decades to come, and has made the jobs of those very men and women in the military about which you are so concerned -- and the lives of we civilians back here in the comfort of our homes -- infinitely more dangerous?

How about the fact that the predicate for this Neocon Crusade was djinned up out of whole cloth in the first place?

How about cynically exploiting this country’s rage and grief over 9/11 to railroad us into Iraq in the first place?

How about the fact that those who tried to stand up and demand the truth from the very beginning were called “traitor” and told to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up from the beginning?

How about that Tom?

Why aren’t those little items on your list, Tom?

Could it be because you were, and at heart still are, an unabashed Iraqi war booster? That you never lost a moment’s sleep over sending troops off to fight for a lie, so long as that lie was being competently prosecuted?

This war was already lie and all the damage this Administration was doing to the civil rights of this nation was already a tragedy in 2002 when the groundwork was being laid and you were cheering it on.

This war was a lie in 2004 when you urged your readers to wait a few more “friedmans” until the problems in Iraq were all straightened out.

That according to the Neocon Bible it was perfectly OK for the Iraqi War to have been a Crime of Choice -- the biggest heist in history -- so long as it went down like “The Thomas Crown Affair”. Sleek and elegant and, shit, maybe we’ll even leave a little democracy behind. Because that’s what kind of classy gentleman thieves Neocons fantasize they are.

But now that it’s turned into fucking “Iraqi Dog Day Afternoon”, suddenly it’s all just so awful!

So you see, Tom, the answer to your first challenge is found in the answer to your second.

Because “we” were never stupid enough in the first place to fall for this President and his pack of lying scoundrels.

You were.

“We” were never cowardly enough to say that the War was okey-dokey even if it was illegal on its face and even if it was used as a battering ram to beat the Constitution to splinters, so long as the underlying crimes were executed proficiently.

You were.

So please, Tom, save your flaccid little lecture on how Karl Rove thinks “we’re” stupid enough to fall for the same head-fake a third time.

No, he thinks you’re that big a damned fool.

And so far he’s had every reason to.

I'm glad you finally, falteringly woke up and caught the tail-end of the bandwagon as it was pulling out of the station, Tom, but the hour is late and at this point if you want to show genuine sincerity there is really only one course left open to you.

Resign.

Stand up and tell the world that you’re horribly sorry that you were complicit in the Iraqi debacle for so long. That clearly, as of the last election, there were around 49 million Americans -- school teachers, truck drivers, waitresses, homeless vets, dog groomers, cab drivers, etc. -- who showed by their vote that they comprehend the problems of this country with vastly greater clarity and depth than you do.

Any of whom, based simply on track record and performance, should have their opinion taken more seriously than yours.

That as it is the case that no matter how much he shows last-minute contrition, someone who molests children shouldn’t be allowed near elementary schools, so it is the case that someone who has shown himself to be an aggressive, willful and serial Truth Molester cannot be allowed to write for America’s foremost newspaper.

At this 11th hour, Tom, resignation is the only honorable thing left for you to do.

Anything less and you're just another sunshine convert.

Just another Conservative con man waiting until the very, very last moment -- far after it has become far too late -- to make his lame, political deathbed confession and then flee to some sheltering“rehab” until the shitstorm you caused has blown over and it’s safe to come out and start shoveling shill again.

Just another Neocon Aqualung, lurking in the alley in your trenchcoat, black socks and press pass, waiting for darkness to fall again and prying eyes to move onto something else so you can get your grubby paws into Truth’s pants one more time.