Starve the Beast

Pompous ass Tom Firedman lays another egg behind the subscription wall at today's NY Times. The short-form of his op-ed today: President Bush has won the war to cut taxes for the rich, so we have to accept that and do away with Social Security and Medicare so we can have a large military.

Here are the concluding paragraphs:

The same as the Pentagon's! So either Social Security and Medicare shrink or the Pentagon shrinks - because higher taxes seem to be out of the question for now. If history is any guide, Americans will prefer Social Security and Medicare over paying to make the world safe for China, India, Russia and Iran to pursue their interests.

If so, the world may soon test out one of the most important theses of Mr. Mandelbaum's book: that the greatest threat to global stability is "not too much American power, but too little."

It sounds to me like Jack Abramoff's close pal, Grover Norquist, has hoodwinked Friedman.