Lefty Minds Think Alike

The similarities are remarkable.

The lib media. Communist Chinese propagandists. Not much difference.

For example, Dana Milbank could be writing for a communist Chinese publication, instead of the Washington Post.

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese news reports made no mention Friday of the protester who interrupted President Hu Jintao's visit with President Bush or a White House announcer flubbing China's official name. But ordinary Chinese commenting on Web sites accused President Bush of insulting Hu.

"You can see from Bush's lack of respect for foreign leaders just how lacking he is in class," said a posting on a bulletin board run by the People's Daily, the main Communist Party newspaper.

Didn't John Kerry use that line in his 2004 presidential stump speech?

...While U.S. media featured the protester, who had obtained temporary press credentials as a reporter for a Falun Gong newspaper and pleaded with Bush to stop Hu from persecuting the banned spiritual movement, the incident was absent from official Chinese reports.

...Shanghai-based Dragon Television carried Hu's White House appearance live but cut away when the protester appeared. So did Phoenix Satellite Television, a Chinese-language broadcaster in Hong Kong with close ties to the Beijing government. The main state channel, China Central Television, didn't carry the event live.

Broadcasts in China by CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp.'s BBC World were blacked out repeatedly Friday by censors, apparently to prevent Chinese viewers from seeing the protester.

Despite such measures, at least some Chinese were clearly aware of Thursday's missteps.

China is a country where the chill wind of censorship is really blowing at hurricane force.

Despite such measures, at least some Chinese were clearly aware of Thursday's missteps.

"Announcing the 'Republic of China' ... is an insult to the People's Republic and its government," said a posting on the People's Daily site.

On washeng.net, a Chinese-language Web site hosted overseas, postings accused the White House of intentionally allowing in the protester.

"This was absolutely planned and directed by America. Given America's anxiety over the war on terror, that person should have been shot otherwise," said an unsigned comment.

"The only explanation," it said, "is that this happened with the knowledge of the Secret Service."

Said another: "It's a tragic and insulting image for international relations."

That's the same stuff being said by some loons on the American Left, always ready with a wacko conspiracy theory.

Today, Dana Milbank focuses on the "indignities" suffered by Hu Jintao.

He writes:

If only the White House hadn't given press credentials to a Falun Gong activist who five years ago heckled Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin, in Malta. Sure enough, 90 seconds into Hu's speech on the South Lawn, the woman started shrieking, "President Hu, your days are numbered!" and "President Bush, stop him from killing!"

Bush and Hu looked up, stunned. It took so long to silence her -- a full three minutes -- that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service's strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese president haltingly attempted to continue his speech and television coverage went to split screen.

"You're okay," Bush gently reassured Hu.

But he wasn't okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the "national anthem of the Republic of China" -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.

Then there were the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as Jiang got, but the administration refused, calling it instead an "official" visit. Bush acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. Even the visiting country's flags were missing from the lampposts near the White House.

But as protocol breaches go, it's hard to top the heckling of a foreign leader at the White House. Explaining the incident -- the first disruption at the executive mansion in recent memory -- White House and Secret Service officials said she was "a legitimate journalist" and that there was nothing suspicious in her background. In other words: Who knew?

Hu did. The Chinese had warned the White House to be careful about who was admitted to the ceremony. To no avail: They granted a one-day pass to Wang Wenyi of the Falun Gong publication Epoch Times. A quick Nexis search shows that in 2001, she slipped through a security cordon in Malta protecting Jiang (she had been denied media credentials) and got into an argument with him. The 47-year-old pathologist is expected to be charged today with attempting to harass a foreign official.

WAAAAAAH!

Oh, the indignities!

The people of China suffer human rights abuses like torture, imprisonment, organ-harvesting, and censorship; but let's all feel sorry for the "indignities" that Hu suffered in Washington at the hands of Bush.

A luncheon instead of a formal dinner?

GASP!

How did Hu survive under such brutal conditions?

I think it's fair to say that Milbank is a Hu sympathizer.


Speaking of "indignity," Milbank doesn't seem to know it when he sees it.
Sometimes the Communist Chinese and liberals are nearly indistinguishable.
Perhaps these Americans need to spend some time in China, a long time.

Such libs claim that the Bush Administration is secretive and oppressive, eroding our civil liberties. I wonder how they would like life under Hu Jintao.

News flash: These libs are shrouded in cluelessness.

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Read more about the Chinese thought police and the erosion of freedom in China.