Writing in Sunday’s New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman continued his tour of countries better than the United States – which has, in the past, included China and Iran – with Singapore. Anytime anyone pays for a hotel room for Friedman, they can be guaranteed a sycophantic space on the Times op-ed page. Here’s Friedman, in Singapore:

Over the years, I’ve seen an America that was respected, hated, feared and loved. But traveling around China and Singapore last week, I was confronted repeatedly with an attitude toward America that I’ve never heard before: “What’s up with you guys?”

Friedman continued:

[A]s for defining the future, the country that showed the world how to pull together to put a man on the moon and defeat Nazism and Communism, today broadcasts a politics dominated by three phrases: “You can’t do that,” “It’s off the table” and “The president didn’t know.”

Friedman even suggested that Americans have to justify their democracy to the Communist Chinese:

Worse, whenever you’d visit China or Singapore, it was always the people there who used to be on the defensive when discussing democracy. Now, as an American, you’re the one who wants to steer away from that subject.

What’s wrong with American democracy? Not our democracy, but that Americans aren’t okay with Chinese-style leftism: “It’s not just that we can no longer pull together to put a man on the moon. It’s that we can’t even implement proven common-sense solutions that others have long mastered — some form of national health care, gun control, road pricing, a gasoline tax to escape our budget and carbon bind.”

In other words, Friedman doesn’t like American democracy because Americans disagree with him. Good news: the Chinese do. And they'll probably shell out for a hotel room.