Oh, to be an Oriental despot!

Woodrow Wilson was the first president of the United States to have been a harsh critic of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In a naked bid to make Steve Hayward’s “Progressive vs. Progressive” Power Line series, Obama has done Wilson one better. Obama is the first president of the United States to have expressed his envy for the president of China.
The New York Times reports: “Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, ‘No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.'”
It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. But I wonder if the president of China might not have thoughts that are the mirror image of Obama’s. I bet he thinks about how much he’d like to be the president borrowing money from China rather than the president lending it to the United States. It may be a Prince and the Pauper kind of a deal. If only the two of them could exchange places for a while, each would come to realize how good he has it.
Or is Obama’s meditation a misguided effort to suck up to Tom Friedman?
Via Hot Air/Bill Kristol.
UPDATE: In the comments Professor Daniel Lowenstein indulges my speculation: “Is it just barely possible that Hu Jintao is wise enough to envy the leader of a country whose system requires the President to satisfy the people he governs rather than a clique of grasping bureaucrats?”