He Don't Know What He Don't Know

The New York Times' Tom Friedman writes an uncharacteristically humerous column today about what a WikiLeaks document from the Chinese Embassy in Washington would look like. After taking a very accurate cheap shot at Amtrak's Acela:

"The ambassador recently took what the Americans call a fast train — the Acela — from Washington to New York City. Our bullet train from Beijing to Tianjin would have made the trip in 90 minutes. His took three hours — and it was on time!"

Friedman goes on the state the obvious fact very few politicians are willing to say:

"But the Americans are oblivious. They travel abroad so rarely that they don’t see how far they are falling behind."

Unfortunately this has always been the case in this country. For example, we also complain about how high our taxes are in the United States even though our tax rates are among the lowest in the world. It's not surprising then that the places with the highest concentrations of immigrant populations as well as people that vacation abroad tend to be blue states. People living in those states actually have a clue as to how the rest of the world lives.