Obama’s Pro-Totalitarian Nominee Withdraws

Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper writing at the New York Times point out that Chas Freeman was a controversial choice for National Intelligence Council Chairman.

When Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, announced that he would install Charles W. Freeman Jr. in a top intelligence post, the decision surprised some in the White House who worried that the selection could be controversial and an unnecessary distraction, according to administration officials.

Mazzetti and Cooper put all the blame on Freeman’s critical stance toward Israel.  That was almost certainly the real deal breaker.  It generated a brief but intense lobbying campaign by supporters of Israel, and it brought pro-Israel members on Congress to push their weight on the issue.  It didn’t help that Freeman was not only anti-Israel, but vehemently pro-Saudi in his positions. 

But that’s hardly the only thing.  The real smoking gun is what Freeman said about the atrocity in Tiananmen Square in 1989, when the Chinese Government smashed a peaceful protest movement by sending tanks against teenagers.  Here is the now infamous e-mail that Freeman sent on the topic, from the Weekly Standard:

I will leave it to others to address the main thrust of your reflection on Eric's remarks. But I want to take issue with what I assume, perhaps incorrectly, to be yoiur citation of the conventional wisdom about the 6/4 [or Tiananmen] incident. I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e. that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than -- as would have been both wise and efficacious -- to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo's response to the mob scene at "Tian'anmen" stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action.

For myself, I side on this -- if not on numerous other issues -- with Gen. Douglas MacArthur. I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be. Such folk, whether they represent a veterans' "Bonus Army" or a "student uprising" on behalf of "the goddess of democracy" should expect to be displaced with despatch from the ground they occupy. I cannot conceive of any American government behaving with the ill-conceived restraint that the Zhao Ziyang administration did in China, allowing students to occupy zones that are the equivalent of the Washington National Mall and Times Square, combined. while shutting down much of the Chinese government's normal operations. I thus share the hope of the majority in China that no Chinese government will repeat the mistakes of Zhao Ziyang's dilatory tactics of appeasement in dealing with domestic protesters in China.

I await the brickbats of those who insist on a politically correct -- i.e. non Burkean conservative -- view.

Chas

I don’t know about you guys, but I find this thing appalling.  A pro-democracy campaign waged by courageous students is murdered by the Chinese government.  China being what it is, we will never know how many died.  But we do know what Chas Freeman thought about the Chinese Government’s actions.  He is disgusted that they waited so long to send in the storm troopers. 

We know already, from Secretary of State Clinton, that the Obama Administration isn’t going to let a silly little thing like human rights get in the way of good relations with China.  Maybe that’s a regrettable necessity.  But at least we should regret it.  Chas Freeman is innocent of such regrets.  He obviously admires the firm hand of Beijing, except that he finds it a little wimpy.  He would respond in the same way, quicker, against protestors on the Capitol Mall, if he had his way. 

Chas Freeman is a cretin.  He was Obama’s pick for a major intelligence post.  It is some small comfort that his date with power has been postponed.  But as Paul Mirengoff points out at Powerline, the comfort is small indeed. 

It's natural to feel relief over the demise of Chas Freeman's appointment as National Intelligence Chairman. But this sentiment must be tempered by the knowledge that the man who selected Freeman, Dennis Blair, is our Director of National Intelligence. Indeed, that knowledge, coupled with Blair's defense of Freeman, fully offsets the relief I otherwise would feel.

What sort of people have we installed at the White House? 

Comments

[caheidelberger]

I agree wholeheartedly: President Obama needs to appoint much less conservative, much more liberal personnel to these key positions.

[KB]

So this guy, who likes the Red Chinese Government more than the dissidents, who defends Hamas and hates Israel, is a conservative? Just out of curiosity, when you look up at the sky on a clear afternoon, what color is it? Orange? Green with traces of peppermint? If you want to raise the issue of where Freeman's opinions fit on the political spectrum, that's easy. This is standard European left. I agree that it is not usually characteristic of American liberals, but you find it among a lot of Ivy league intellectuals who wish they were European.

[l.c.miller]

It would seem that Ken Blanchard from the great empty center of N. America is the cretin here. Sure he's mad but so is any cretin. Mad enough for war against China? Sure, let's go! Does he speak Chinese? Arabic? Japanese? How about Spanish, French, Hebrew, anything? How's his historical knowledge of the Middle East? Of Iran or Pakistan or Vietnam? Who cares, he's got a mouth and he can shoot it off. Like the guns of the laconic lawmen in the Hollywood westerns of yore. Ever trusting of the movies' simplistic morality and distrusting them damn Marxist Europeans.

[KB]

I am sure l.c.miller must have his coherent moments. This is not one of them.