I'm multitasking during dinner, paging through the latest National Geographic while listening to Special Report with Brit Hume. Every three months or so NG, in the spirit of artistically perfect but charmingly naive observation, runs a puff-piece on one dictatorship or the other. Usually it's Cuba, no surprise for the would-be jewel of the West Indies. This month NG goes to Vietnam. You know, the Communist Vietnam that scores atrociously on Freedom House's test on rights and liberties. I didn't need to read it; just flipped to a random page, read two sentences and groaned. Visually stunning whitewash as usual.
Here's some advice on trusting the opinions of the oppressed: Asking people in a dictatorship what they think of their government is like asking a fish what he thinks about the bear whose mouth is closing around him.
Off soapbox. It's okay; the next story is about wolves.