Thomas Friedman, you pitiful fool

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has a bad habit of fantasizing that the United States is subject to a government in the mode of the Chinese Communist regime. Friedman’s fantasy has been noted by many observers such as Jonah Goldberg, who has declared Friedman a liberal fascist. Friedman’s utopian daydream is a liberal fantasy that fits into a long and disgraceful tradition of protecting or celebrating Communists and Communism at the Times.

By contrast, journalist and China scholar Jonathan Mirsky is an honorable man of the left who has been a close and critical observer of the high price of Communism on the citizens of China. Mirsky’s essay on Liu Xiabo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, appears in the current New York Times Book Review under the headline “Exiled at home” and online under the headline “Liu Xiaobo’s plea for the human spirit.” Appearing in the Times, the essay can’t be given my fantasy heading for it: “Thomas Friedman, you pitiful fool.”

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