you, sir, are no Tim O'Brien

Some have speculated that Thomas Friedman's too-snappy anecdotes are more fiction than non. No surprise, then, that today's editorial in the Paper of Record sends Friedman into "story truth" territory.

Friedman ties together a string of rebukes by appropriately longsuffering Iraqi visitors baffled by the hypocrisy of American policies there and here. A sample:

A fellow delegation member, Abdul Wahab al-Unfi, a Shiite lawyer who walks with a limp today as a result of torture in a Saddam prison, said he did not want to spend another day in Washington after listening to the Bush team defend its right to use torture in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Small problem: if you haven't guessed it, the quote is fabricated. Writes Friedman, "(Yes, all of this is a fake news story. I just wish that it weren't so true.)"

No wonder The Times wants to hide Friedman's op-eds behind a firewall.