I'm not the GP commenter, but I strongly agree. Friedman's column [0] was the most obvious propaganda piece I've ever seen in a serious publication. It both blew me away for its shamelessness and also sickened me when I read it, permanently ended my trust in Friedman, greatly reduced my trust in all NYT columnists, and hurt my trust in the NYT in general. Here are a few obvious problems:

1. "Arab Spring": The Arab Spring was a grassroots movement for democracy, self-determination for the citizens. That's the complete opposite of a dictator - in a monarchy even - consolidating power. That difference is the foundation of the United States in particular and democracies world-wide. It's double-speak, as absurd as calling the NSA an open source organization.

2. "only a fool would not root for it": Friedman is far too experienced and sophisticated to fall for the promises and hopes of the latest "benign" despot who is at the stage of consolidating power. It's standard operating procedure for dictators at this stage: Promise a lot to everyone, especially to the West (apparently via Friedman), [EDIT: and liberalize] in order to neutralize potential threats - 'he says great things; he's liberalizing; let's wait and see what happens!'. Once power is consolidated, you can do whatever you want; the "benign" part is forgotten, the freedoms taken away. It never turns out differently. Why not let the citizens vote on your power if you are so benign and they love you so much? EDIT: Only if the citizens have the power to protect their freedoms, through voting, will the freedoms be maintained - I defy you to find a counter-example.

3. "his government arrested scores of Saudi princes and businessmen on charges of corruption and threw them into a makeshift gilded jail — the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton — until they agreed to surrender their ill-gotten gains. You don’t see that every day": In fact, you do see it every day a new dictator consolidates power. It's so standard that I could have told you it would happen: They imprison their enemies and force them to confess or just convict them (summarily or via show trial); corruption is a popular charge in these situations for its propaganda value with the public and the West - look at Xi in China for a recent example. There are no independent courts, trials, rule of law, or justice.

4. "It’s “ludicrous,” he [the dictator] said, to suggest that this anticorruption campaign was a power grab." Accepted without question by Friedman, who apparently was born the morning of the interview.

5. "Not a single Saudi I spoke to here over three days expressed anything other than effusive support for this anticorruption drive." What a surprise! As the new King is rounding up people and consolidating power, nobody told the NYT columnist that they objected. Only in dictatorships is there universal effusive support for anything. Did Friedman talk to the imprisoned people or their families?

6. "While foreigners, like me, were inquiring about the legal framework for this operation, the mood among Saudis I spoke with was: “Just turn them all upside down, shake the money out of their pockets and don’t stop shaking them until it’s all out!”" Those ridiculous foreigners, worried about trivial nonsense like the rule of law, independent courts, and justice for the accused. Just let the King decide who is guilty; that whole American Revolution was a mistake.

7. "to bring Saudi Islam back to its more open and modern orientation — whence it diverted in 1979." First, Friedman buys the framing from the dictator's propaganda: This is the normal state of it, to which the King will return it. I didn't see anyone mention that natural state of things before, in many years of reading about it. Also, this is obviously a play for Western support for his dictatorship. If Friedman is serious, how about talking to some historians and providing some serious history, not the dictator's narrative?

8. "After nearly four hours together, I surrendered at 1:15 a.m. to M.B.S.’s youth, pointing out that I was exactly twice his age. It’s been a long, long time, though, since any Arab leader wore me out with a fire hose of new ideas about transforming his country." and "A lawyer by training, who rose up in his family’s education-social welfare foundation." and more: Was this ghost-written by the dictator's flunkies? Kim Jong-Un has similar things written about him, but not in the NY Times!

I'm out of time (and probably so are you), so I'll stop reading the column there ...

9. It is completely one-sided, with barely a hint of skepticism and zero discussion with or even mention of the the dictator's opposition (including the people in jail), critics, victims; no discussion of his weaknesses and failures; no holding him to account for the lack of democracy (or even mention of it). It's a PR piece for a candidate, except there is no election there.

It's so obvious and over-the-top that I almost think Friedman was trying to call attention to the absurdity, like the old satarists behind the Iron Curtain who would get their point across without triggering the censors by being over-the-top effusive* about their oppressors. But who is censoring Friedman?

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-...