Remember way back when Tom Friedman shredded liberals because we allegedly don't think Arabs are capable of Democracy?

I'm really sorry. Next time...I promise, I really promise, I'll be a better liberal....I will view the prospect of Arabs forging a democracy as utterly impossible. They're incapable of democracy.

Oh, yeah, it was last week. (Thinkprogress has the audio).

So what's he saying today, six whole days later?

If Arab Muslims can summon the will to protest only against the insults of "the foreigner" but never the injuries inflicted by their own on their own, how can they ever generate a modern society or democracy -- which is all about respecting and protecting minority voices and unorthodox views? And if Sunnis and Shiites can never form a social contract to rule themselves -- and will always require an iron-fisted dictator -- decent government will forever elude them.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between what he wrote today and what he viciously criticized last week is the "if".

As Hunter said last week at Dailykos, "Yep, he gets Pulitzer Prizes for spouting crap like that."

(Cross-posted at Dailykos.)