What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war. - Thomas Friedman

China's going to have a free press.... Oh, China's leaders don't know it yet, but they are being pushed straight in that direction.

I was speaking out in Minnesota—my hometown, in fact—and a guy stood up in the audience, said, "Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you’d oppose?" I said, "No, absolutely not." I said, "You know what, sir? I wrote a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn’t even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade."

I think we're in the end-game now…. I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt, I think, the next congressional election—that's my own feeling—let alone the presidential one.