NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST NICHOLAS KRISTOF: MAO WASN'T ALL BAD

Are the morons at the New York Times really this out of touch? Another blathering sycophant for totalitarianism, Nicholas Kristof, has decided that "Mao's Legacy Is Not All Bad."

"My own sense is that Mao, however monstrous, also brought useful changes to China….But Mao’s legacy is not all bad. Land reform in China, like the land reform in Japan and Taiwan, helped lay the groundwork for prosperity today. The emancipation of women and end of child marriages moved China from one of the worst places in the world to be a girl to one where women have more equality than in, say, Japan or Korea. Indeed, Mao’s entire assault on the old economic and social structure made it easier for China to emerge as the world’s new economic dragon….In the same way, I think, Mao's ruthlessness was a catastrophe at the time, brilliantly captured in this extraordinary book -- and yet there's more to the story: Mao also helped lay the groundwork for the rebirth and rise of China after five centuries of slumber." -- Foreign policy reporter turned columnist Nicholas Kristof reviewing a new Mao biography in the October 23 Book Review

There's always "more to the story" for a liberal isn't there? God forbid something just be plain "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong." With columnists spouting off about the good points of totalitarian thugs, The Old Gray Lady's circulation will keep on plummeting, except perhaps in Beijing.

Let's break it out for Nicholas like he's four years old shall we? Nicholas, listen carefully: Mao was a bad, bad man, even if he did make the trains run on time. He killed millions of people. That is very, very wrong. Understand? Genocide is not good. Mmkay? Now run out to the kitchen and see if there's a grown-up conservative that can fix you some milk and cookies, you little whipper-snapper.

[HT: TimesWatch.org]