For speaking honestly to power, mockery is hardly punishment. As per the Royal Shakespeare company.

KING LEAR:

Dost thou call me fool, boy?

FOOL:

All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.

[1.4.146-8]

Emphasis mine. And the RSC take:

The Fool is the first person, indeed the only person in the play, to criticise Lear for abdicating and dividing the kingdom. Lear hears him out, seems to join in the fun, and threatens him with the whip...

And perhaps more relevantly with regard to the surrender of rightful power (and only respecting the monarch's authority in the story, and not in general):

When thou clovest thy crown i'th'middle and gavest away both parts, thou borest thy ass o'th'back o'er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest the golden one away (1.4.142: Quarto Scene 4.153)

http://www.rsc.org.uk/lear/teachers/fool.html

From Wikipedia:

Friedman's wife, Ann, is a graduate of Stanford University.[41] Her father, Matthew Bucksbaum, is the chairman of the board of General Growth Properties, the real estate development group that he co-founded with his brother in 1954. The Bucksbaums helped pioneer the development of shopping centers in the United States.[42] As of 2007, Forbes estimated the Bucksbaum family's assets at $4.1 billion, including about 18.6 million square meters of mall space.[43]

Ann and Thomas Friedman live in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The July 2006 issue of Washingtonian reported that they own "a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, currently valued at $9.3 million, on a 7½-acre parcel just blocks from I-495 and Bethesda Country Club." They have two daughters: Orly Friedman (b. 1985), who attended Yale University; and Natalie Friedman (b. 1988), who attends Williams College. Both were born in Israel while Friedman served as a correspondent for The New York Times.[44] Friedman has dedicated many of his published works to his daughters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman#Personal_life

Not that this should prevent Friedman from lecturing us all about how we ought see the world, the economy, and good ol' ordinary American life. Like all the vain and vapid media star / ignoramuses, I'm quite sure he wills himself to see things from the point of view of 'the common man'.

Thomas Friedman, himself part of a billionaire fortune, is writing in the New York Times, a multi-billion dollar enterprise.

In his column, he refers to -- but does not cite -- various polls about the popularity of the U.S. and other nations in various areas.

Much ink has been spilled lately decrying the decline in American popularity around the world under President Bush. Polls tell us how China is now more popular in Asia than America and how few Europeans say they identify with the United States. I am sure there is truth to these polls...

...So, yes, we’re not so popular in Europe and Asia anymore. I guess they would prefer a world in which America was weaker, where leaders with the values of Vladimir Putin and Thabo Mbeki had a greater say, and where the desperate voices for change in Zimbabwe would, well, just shut up.

He then goes on to lecture the world, and us, on how he thinks we should be perceived, based on an ultra-capsule version of what's going on in Zimbabwe. (Which, as is usual, is only a moralizing discussion of Zimbabwe -- and leaves out the fears of many, including Zimbabwe's neighbors, that the wrong kind of action could cause a complete state collapse leading to tens of millions of instant refugees and another nightmare chaos in a region which has suffered the Congo civil war for years.)

But there is another approach, and it is typical of Friedman that he arrogantly ignores it: you could ask the world.

If I were in Friedman's position, and I actually were honestly curious about why people felt the ways they apparently do about the U.S. and other nations, I could find out.

I wouldn't just have to talk to a cabbie, or, like so many useless pundits, talk straight out of my a** and put words in the mouths of all the rest of the world's inhabitants.

But then, that's what Thomas Friedman specializes in -- writing out of his a** and putting words and made up nonsense in the mouths of those whom it serves him.

I guess that one of the lessons I will take from these last 7.5 years is that in the modern day, the Democratic Party will simply not substantially oppose an aggressively right-wing, authoritarian President, particularly not with regard to basic issues of governance and power.

I'm pretty sure that the Democratic Congress will strut its stuff and show how defiant of anything liberal or progressive a hypothetical President Obama might push.

In fact I could easily foresee a President Obama facing far more Democratic leadership opposition than President Bush Jr. ever did from the same Democratic leaders, at least, if he should (hypothetically) attempt to ever push anything truly non-hawkish.