RadarOnline.com has a series of web pages that illustrate, writer by writer, those "reporters," analysts, and op-ed writers who continue to make FAT PROFITS from their columns and appearances on network/cable TV, while CONSISTENTLY BEING WRONG on ALL of their predictions, especially those about the horrific Iraq war.
Unfortunately, R-O's guide is far from complete - in fact, it doesnt' even include the most parasitically WRONG of the media commentators, which list would have to include WILLIAM SAFIRE of the New York Times, ARTHUR SULZBERGER, the publisher (owner) and thereby supreme-editor of the Times; and WILLIAM KRISTOL, the Wall St. Journal fear-monger and Fox 'news' "contributing expert," who in an independent review was right only THREE out of TEN times. That is an ERROR RATE of SEVENTY PERCENT (70%)!!
With "experts" like these, we Americans find ourselves on a repeat of history: the path from PROSPEROUS America following the WWI production boom to the America of 'Hoovervilles and Hoover-hogs' (shanty-towns and rats & armadillos for meat) during the Great Depression that followed the presidential terms of Rethuglicans Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.
While RadarOnline's expose of CONSISTENTLY WRONG media pundits doesn't include the above three "biggies" (and dozens of others, including of course Rush Pimpball, the major domo of making Right-Wing HATE RADIO sound semi-respectable), it does start off with New York Times celebrity "SLASH THE AMERICAN SOCIAL SAFETY NET IN THE NAME OF PROFIT!" pundit, THOMAS FRIEDMAN.
Cut through all of their pretenses of patriotism, shared-sacrifice, and national security, all these Righty, neo-con, and neo-confederate vultures worship one thing and one thing only: MONEY ($$) and the CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH, the penultimate idealization of which was CHATTEL SLAVERY during the ante-bellum and Confederate eras.
Like so many of the Neo-Cons, Friedman started off a semi-decent fellow: in the aftermath of the last reign of Rethuglican insanity in America (the Bush-1 recession), Friedman took it upon himself to rebut the "HATE GOVERNMENT!" rhetoric of Right-Wing HATE radio, which for example included former Nixon CIA break-in operative G. GORDON LIDDY saying on his syndicated talk-show in the early 1990's "WHEN SHOOTING JACK-BOOTED FEDERAL AGENTS, AIM FOR THE HEAD, SO YOU AVOID HITTING THEIR BODY ARMOR."
It was THAT rhetoric that drove GULF WAR-1 DECORATED COMBAT VETERAN Tim McVeigh to BOMB the Federal Govt. building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing over 100 American citizens and costing tens of millions of dollars worth of damage and grief. Today, Washington Post parasite pundit GEORGE WILL offers THIS tidbit of wisdom for those who seek to increase the minimum wage: [Will] "There should be NO minimum wage, $0"!
Will's advice to GULF WAR-1 and IRAQ WAR-2 veterans who aren't able to hold a job because of wartime injuries or PTSD - or even a slow-burn rage such as Tim McVeigh experienced- ??
{Paraphasing George Will's Washington-Post/ABC agenda):
"SUCK IT UP, combat-wounded SUCKERS, while multi-millionaires like me [George Will] get BIG, FAT GOVERNMENT and community SUBSIDIES and CONRACTS and CONCESSIONS to build HUGE SPORTS STADIUMS on the public dime!"
We here (your humble editors and writers at MediaWhoresUSA.blogspot.com) are full-on participants in the culture of major-media professional sports, but why should sports stars make millions of dollars per year risking their bodies on the gridiron, while IRAQ WAR SOLDIERS and Marines RISK THEIR LIVES, DAILY, some for THREE YEARS, only to get the crumbs thrown to them by the GEORGE WILL/TOM FRIEDMAN/ARTHUR SULZBERGER parasitic media?
Tom Freidman isn't as bad as George Will, but that is faint praise: like Will, Kristol, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and dozens of other Right-Wing parasites & vultures, Friedman is SELLING THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE _DOWN-the-River_ just as fast as he can get his next book or NYT column published.
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GETTING RICH BY BEING WRONG
Tom Friedman
http://www.radaronline.com/features/2007/01/betting_on_iraq_2.php
WAR PROFITEER 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: At the peak of his field. 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 love letter 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.
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