Scott Johnson nails it: Thomas Friedman, you pitiful fool,
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 left-winger 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.”
Liu Xiaobo’s book, No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems, has a foreword by Vaclac Havel.
Read the review, buy the book.