Back in September, Tom Friedman, speaking of China, proclaimed that "there is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today." That prompted Jonah Goldberg to call Friedman a "liberal fascist," drawing an example from his seminal book, Liberal Fascism, to demonstrate how Friedman's fawning over the Chi-Coms "is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s."
But far from being abashed, Friedman is apparently so enamored of his formulation that he has repeated it virtually verbatim. The Times columnist suffered another bad bout of Chi-Com envy on today's Meet The Press, guest-hosted by Tom Brokaw.
TOM BROKAW: Tom, are we at a kind of turning point in America in terms of being able to make this a functioning country again, or are we dysfunctional?
TOM FRIEDMAN: Well this is what worries me. I've been saying for awhile Tom, there's only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, the Chinese form of government, and that's one-party democracy. In China, if the leadership can get around to an enlightened decision it can order it from the top down, OK. Here when you have one-party democracy, one party ruling, basically the other party just saying no, every solution is sub-optimal. And when your chief competitor in the world can order optimal and you can only produce sub-optimal? Because what happens, whether it's health care or the energy bill, votes one-through-fifty cost you a lot. Fifty to fifty-nine cost you a fortune. And vote sixty: his name's Ben Nelson! And by the time you've made all those compromises, you end up with the description David [Brooks] had of the health care bill, which is this Rube Goldberg contraption. I really hope, I hope personally it passes. I hope it works. But I can't tell you I think it's optimal.
Yes, just dream of what America could be be if only Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi had the power to push their enlightened ideas through like President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao can!
Browkaw's fretting was also noteworthy. Becoming a functioning country "again" would apparently mean getting those awful Republican years behind us, while stopping ObamaCare would equate with being "dysfunctional." Guess what, Tom? Most Americans don't want ObamaCare, and are likely to punish the Dems for pushing it and reward the Republicans for stopping it. Will Brokaw see that, in the words of his late colleague and competitor Peter Jennings, as the American people pulling a "temper tantrum"?
