No Hello Dalai

One of the arguments made in defense of the President's unlucky jaunt to Copenhagen was that "right wingers" would have blasted him had he not gone. I thought that a silly argument. No President had gone before the IOC before, so all President Obama would have had to say was: "did Bush go?" And as the President's defenders usually admit, right wingers are going to blast him no matter what he does.

But now I notice this story, from the Washington Post:

In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month, according to diplomats, government officials and other sources familiar with the talks.

For the first time since 1991, the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington this week and not meet with the president. Since 1991, he has been here 10 times. Most times the meetings have been "drop-in" visits at the White House. The last time he was here, in 2007, however, George W. Bush became the first sitting president to meet with him publicly, at a ceremony at the Capitol in which he awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress's highest civilian award.

If the President were really worried about inviting right wing criticism, he surely would have thought twice about this.

The President is nothing if not consistent on this policy: be very nice to our enemies and openly insult our friends. You'd think that would have started working out by now. No doubt the benefits will kick in any day now.

Comments

[duggersd]

Just as I believe President Bush had what he believed to be the best interests of the US at heart, I believe President Obama does too. However I also believe what he believes to be the best interests of the US are probably dangerous to us. I cannot complain about him going to present Chicago's case at the IOC. With the way communication is today, he can keep in touch just about anywhere in the world. I only find his attempts to make many people in the news media and many of his supporters appear rather foolish. The CNN anchor actually could not believe his ears. His supporters are finding that it takes more than a good speech to sway people.
This situation with China is doing nothing more than making him appear weak. He knows he has a real problem with China on the economic front. He probably has a problem on the military front as well. He appears to be appeasing the Chinese and they will continue to push as long as they can. I am not convinced meeting or not meeting with the Dali Lama is anything more than symbolic. I suspect President Bush did so to send a message to the Chinese. I believe President Obama has just sent another message.

[A.I.]

Once more I will explain that no one cared whether or not the Right would be critical of Obama's Copenhagen trip because their noise machine would have been critical whether he went or not. And because they would have been critical in any case, what the Right says now is irrelevant.

As to being "nice to our enemies", are you saying that includes China? If so, maybe we should quit exporting our jobs to them. And maybe Bush & Company shouldn't have borrowed a trillion bucks from them so they could give tax breaks to their friends.

[Constant Gina]

China is the next world power..hell yeah keep them happy Obama!