Further to our item yesterday about how China has consistently underreported its coal use and carbon dioxide emissions, a sharp-eyed reader reminds me of this 2009 Tom Friedman column, expressing his prototypical “China-Is-Awesome” envy of authoritarianism:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power.

Tom Terrific left out China overtaking us in coal use and greenhouse gas emissions, too.

You would think Friedman would have the decency to shut up. Fat chance of that.