Time' s Joe Klein thinks that Iran is "breezy with freedom." Freedom House, however, says Iran is "one of the most despotic regimes in the world." Peter Wehner observes in an excellent post Contentions that the problem with Klein's analysis, it seems, is that
He mistakes frequent flyer miles for wisdom, and overseas passports for insight. Joe is a man so consistently and, at times, comically wrong in his analysis, that he is becoming an advertisement for why, when it comes to commenting on foreign policy matters, it is better to stay at home than travel abroad. Why travel 7,000 miles to draw ideologically simplistic judgments? Klein is a political commentator who somewhere along the way convinced himself he was Henry Kissinger. It turns out he's not even Warren Christopher.