A New York Times op ed today says:

Still, this has so far been a year of heartening surprises - each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power.

Nashville Truth reacts:

All of this reminds me of the eighties when liberal politicians, academics, and journalists were all opposing the Reagan arms buildup. They said that Reagan was going to cause a nuclear war and that the Soviet Union could never be defeated. They said we could only hope to contain the spread of communism. Like Bush, Reagans critics made fun of him, called him a cowboy, and called him stupid.

Joe says:

Take note: when the world’s foremost wordsmiths cannot spin current events into some tragedy, things are going very well.

Debbye has some thoughts. Decision ‘08 has a roundup of the latest meme. IsraPundit thinks the NYT must have choked on the editorial. And Roger L. Simon wonders:

Is this the beginning of a new trend for the Times? Who knows? Soon they may be sounding like Michael Ledeen.

On a somewhat related note, the transcript of Keith Olbermann’s show last night is pending, but apparently he is giving credit to the Bush Doctrine for positive changes in the middle east. (Transcript link via Olbermann Watch). LGF links to DU going nuts over this “sellout.”

UPDATE: (3/3) Ace of Spades thinks the cowboy got the cows moving.

And Friedman defines the other pole– how conservative a liberal is allowed to be before having to turn in his membership card.

When Friedman speaks, more reasonable liberals listen. Frankly, I think he’s overrated and often just tells you the bleeding obvious, but liberals understand that when Friedman says “You must admit, or at least begin to consider the possibility, that all of this may in fact work,” his admirers in the New York Times and Slate and Salon and all the rest know they need to follow his lead or else they’ll begin looking… well, a bit like Paul Krugman.

[List of posts about other articles trumpeting, well, at least acknowledging, that democracy in the Middle East may be a good trend].

Unbelievable. When I first brought up the possibility that Friedman’s column might cause a stampede of media groupthink towards the right, I was only half-serious.

Well, less than half-serious. I didn’t think it would happen; I just speculated that with Thomas F’n’ Friedman now admitting that freedom might actually work, the press corps might feel obliged to reconsider three years of relentless negativity and doom-saying.

But the stampede does in fact seem to have happened.

Anyone who can get cows to move that fast must have a little cowboy in him. Which makes Thomas Friedman something of a kindred spirit to President Bush.