DISSENT

In case you weren't aware, America and China are different.

We have a Constitution with a Bill of Rights. Our right to dissent is the Law of the Land.

Chinese President Hu Jintao touted deepening U.S.-China ties as he prepared to tour a major U.S. exporter on Wednesday before a White House summit expected to touch on trade frictions and Iran's nuclear program.

...Hu dined Tuesday night with about 100 U.S. political and corporate leaders at the home of Bill Gates, whose Microsoft Corp. has been a major victim of Chinese software piracy. In a meeting earlier with Gates, Hu reiterated that China would move against software pirates.

...Attendees at Tuesday's dinner, hosted by Washington state Gov. Chris Gregoire at Gates' $100 million lakeside mansion, included executives from Boeing Co., a leading exporter, which Hu will visit Wednesday.

Not everything has gone smoothly for Hu. He has been met by some protesters during his U.S. visit.

In the state of Washington on Tuesday, supporters of the Falun Gong blasted protests about China's human rights violations from sound trucks into Hu's hotel. The protesters also gathered at Microsoft's headquarters.

Other protesters congregated outside the White House gates with signs and banners noting the issues of China's various atrocities, and its policies on Tibet and Taiwan.

These protests were minor and easily managed by the Chinese thought police. This morning, however, one woman managed to stage a high profile protest.

After all of the carefully orchestrated and lavish treatment poured on Hu the past couple of days, the Chinese president got a taste of freedom.

From the New York Times:

President Hu Jintao of China started his first visit to Washington as his country's top leader today, greeted warmly with band music and handshakes by President Bush on the White House lawn. But the formality of the ceremony was quickly shattered when an emotional heckler shouted at him from a position stationed among journalists covering the event.

Shortly after Mr. Hu, with President Bush at his side, stepped up to the podium and expressed his happiness to visit the United States "in the lovely season of spring," shrill shouts from a protester, who appeared to be Asian, rang out from across the lawn during the live television broadcast.


She began shouting in Chinese, but broke into English at moments, yelling "Stop the torture and killings!" and shouting the name of the Falun Gong, a religious and exercise sect that is outlawed in China. "Falun Dafa is good," she yelled.

Mr. Hu looked at first confused and then hesitated before continuing to speak.

"You're okay," Mr. Bush said to him in a low voice, prodding him on.

For about a minute, the shrill protests punctuated both Mr. Hu's remarks and the gaps in which he fell silent when they were being translated into English. A photographer standing next to the woman tried briefly to silence her.

Eventually, security officials made their way to the top of the camera stand and led her away as some photographers turned their cameras from the two leaders and pointed them at the protester.

...The incident with the protester raised questions about the adequacy of security measures for journalists covering visits of foreign leaders to the White House. It was not clear how the woman gained access to the pool. She positioned herself in the one place where the Secret Service would have the hardest time reaching her: On the top level of a grandstand set up for television cameras, blocked by equipment and ladders on all sides.

Naturally, the Times bashes the Secret Service and the White House for providing inadequate security at the event.

Rather than highlight what the woman was shouting about, the Times prefers to turn the incident into a screw-up on the part of the Bush Administration.

What was the woman doing with the press pool?

There are a few possibilities.

She may be a member of the press and decided to stage her protest. She may have been successful at obtaining press credentials fraudulently. She may have been aided by someone in the press pool to help her gain access to the event.

Of course, it's somewhat embarrassing that she was able to disrupt the ceremony; but she only had her voice and a small, yellow Falun Gong banner.

It's not like she...oh, I don't know...got past security and TOSSED A LIVE GRENADE AT HU!

Last May, during President Bush's visit to Tbilisi, Georgia, Vladimir Arutyunian threw a grenade that landed just 100 feet away from the President on the podium.

There's an enormous difference between that and a woman shouting.
Drudge has a link to video of this morning's incident.

He also reports:

On China TV: As Hu was speaking when yells of protesters became audible, the screen went black. When the feed came back the screen once again went black when woman was again heard. During CNN International's post-speech commentary, at mention of south lawn heckler, the screen also went black again. The CNN feed returned when the incident ended.

I think it's unfair for lib outlets, like the New York Times, to criticize security. The woman wasn't armed with anything but a voice and a piece of cloth.

Normally, libs would embrace such an expression of free speech. Instead, they focus on the supposed inadequacies of security here.

Security worked. No one was physically harmed.

For a moment, let's say the woman is a member of the press. Her display and heckling wasn't all that different from a Helen Thomas or David Gregory performance at a presidential press conference.

The lib media should be dwelling on the torture, the imprisonment, and the organ-harvesting done by the Chinese government, not a woman that was able to call attention to the atrocities.

Why are the libs jumping on the Bush Administration for this?

The simple answer:

They would rather support the human rights violations of China than President Bush.
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Update:The Associated Press identifies the protester and tells how she was able to make her splash in the press pool.

Stephen Gregory, a spokesman for the Falun Gong-affiliated newspaper The Epoch Times, later identified the protester as Dr. Wang Wenyi, a pathologist and Falun Gong practitioner based in New York. She had received a press credential through The Epoch Times, Gregory said.