I found today's column by Tom Friedman immensely frustrating. There's alot in here to commend it. After all, it is difficult to look at something like the sheer excess of the Superbowl Halftime Show and wonder how it's appropriate for a nation at war, with no mention of our soldiers overseas.
But I think blaming that on the Bushies is a bit over the top. The White House asked for a "New Normal," and what they got after September 11th, after our forces over threw the Taliban and then again after the combat phase in Iraq, was a media eager to rush back to normal with as little attention as possible to war -- a subject that's just so uncomfortable. They prefer Happy Talk. This all began, remember, when it was time for the Salt Lake Olympics. Too much had been invested, especially by NBC, to let anything interfere with their chosen story lines and those story lines did not involve anything as depressing as war. Doping and judging scandals are the closest we get in that insular little world.
I understand, as well, many of the arguments Friedman has made in the past about national sacrifice, but he does not help himself by linking them to a call for us to fight with allies. We are fighting with allies, but somehow if those allies don't include France and Germany it just doesn't count.
