Lindsey Graham - Celebration of Life

Today begins the celebration of the life and legacy of a true patriot, Senator Lindsey Graham.

As we begin the solemn process of laying Senator Graham to rest, we remember and reflect on a lifetime defined by service, sacrifice, and an unwavering devotion to South Carolina and… pic.twitter.com/LQOxOZvC9a

— South Carolina Republican Party (@SCGOP) July 28, 2026

🚨 Lindsey Graham's sister Darline Graham is emotional as she touches the casket of her brother in the Capitol 💔 pic.twitter.com/ZRNsrDpMjU

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 28, 2026

🚨 PRESIDENT TRUMP: "When he met the Dalai Lama, Lindsey looked him straight in the eyes and said, so can you really levitate?"

"The Dalai Lama was not happy with that!" 😂

"The same Lindsey Graham, when he met Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, in a tent in the desert, he told… pic.twitter.com/QQsIBnerWN

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 28, 2026

WATCH: Lindsey Graham's casket is carried out of the Washington National Cathedral following a moving memorial service attended by President Trump, Cabinet members, and world leaders.

Memorial services will continue in South Carolina on Wednesday, featuring a final visit to the… pic.twitter.com/c2J7NTuwSx

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 28, 2026

Lindsey Graham and the Dalai Lama

🔥🚨 LMAO! — Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) says that Sec. Marco Rubio told a hilarious Lindsey Graham Story today at the lunch honoring his life and legacy.

KENNEDY: "Secretary Rubio told a funny story: he was with Lindsay when Lindsay first met the Dalai Lama, and Lindsey's first… pic.twitter.com/oCf9NOa0ip

— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) July 14, 2026

Dalai Lama Story Hour

Dalai Lama Inundated With Requests From Public Libraries To Lead Story Hours https://t.co/kZ1wjUYbjY pic.twitter.com/J1UQCCJjfh

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 10, 2023

The Dalai Lama Asks Little Boy to Suck His Tongue

The Dalai Lama asked a little boy to suck his tongue and not one mainstream news outlet is asking what the heck is going on here. This is pedophilic, abusive and totally sick. pic.twitter.com/n16lDgONhg

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) April 10, 2023

What is this?

Sick.

Dalai Lama and Trump: 'No Worries'

The Dalai Lama isn't worried about Donald Trump being the leader of the Free World.

Dalai Lama says 'I have no worries' about Trump's election https://t.co/KOFoyh552Q pic.twitter.com/1FIfRyrGeG

— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 23, 2016

Maybe the Leftists will listen.

Dalai Lama and George W. Bush

The Dalai Lama loves President George W. Bush.

From NewsBusters:

The Dalai Lama said something Tuesday guaranteed to make liberal heads explode.

Appearing on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, the Dalai Lama told his very shocked host, "I love President Bush."

Video, via Breitbart TV:



Poor Piers.

He must have thought he was having a nightmare.

Alas, he couldn't wake up from it.

If the Dalai Lama had said, "I love President Obama," that bit of video would have been aired non-stop on MSNBC. Obama would use it in a campaign commercial.

Because President Bush is cited by the Dalai Lama, the Leftist media ignore it. They must have been floored by the revelation.

It's not easy being a liberal.

Obama and Hu Jintao, the Beijing Olympics and Human Rights

What a difference a couple of years in the Oval Office makes!

On Wednesday, Obama threw a lavish state dinner for the president of China, Hu Jintao.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Michelle and Barack Obama welcomed a mix of Hollywood A-listers, big business types and prominent Chinese-Americans to the White House as they threw a "quintessentially American" state dinner Wednesday for the president of China, complete with apple pie and ice cream, and jazz music for the entertainment.

The first lady was clad in an elegant red shoulder-baring gown that swished around her in soft folds and the president sported a tuxedo as they welcomed Chinese President Hu Jintao on a red carpet on the White House portico. An honor guard stood at attention behind them.

Celebrity star power arrived in the form of singer Barbra Streisand, her hubby-actor James Brolin and action film star Jackie Chan. Big business turned out in force, too, including Microsoft's Steven Ballmer and JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, among others. Among the big names: fashion's Vera Wang, Vogue's Anna Wintour, artist Maya Lin, Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan, and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to add some gravitas. Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter made the cut, too.

...The two presidents' toasts featured the usual promises of better relations all around, and Obama used the moment to highlight an agreement that will ensure the beloved giant pandas from China remain at the Smithsonian National Zoo for another five years.

...On the menu: d'anjou pear salad with farmstead goat cheese, poached Maine lobster, orange glazed carrots and black trumpet mushrooms, dry aged rib eye with buttermilk crisp onions, double-stuffed potatoes and creamed spinach. Dessert was to be old-fashioned apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

...Streisand, who also made the guest list for an afternoon luncheon at the State Department, said she was appearing at her first state dinner since the Clinton years. The singer, who helped raise money for Obama during the presidential campaign, said she had "a lot of friends here."

Asked for a thought on why she had been invited, she quipped: "I worked in a Chinese restaurant."

More details about the state dinner here.

Guest list here.

It was quite a glitzy affair in honor of Hu.

Yes, Hu was wined and dined by Obama.

It's hard to believe that just a couple of years ago Obama was calling for President Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing.

FLASHBACK, April, 10, 2008:

Barack Obama is following Hillary's lead. He, too, wants President Bush to be a no-show at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing.

LEVITTOWN, Pa. -- Barack Obama joined Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday in calling for President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Clinton had commended British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for announcing that he will skip the August ceremonies in China's capital, and called on Obama and likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain to join her in urging Bush to do the same.

Obama did later in the day; his campaign issued a statement in which, for the first time, he urged Bush to boycott the festivities.

...Obama said a boycott "should be firmly on the table," but that a decision should be made closer to the Games.

"If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the president should boycott the opening ceremonies," he said. "As I have communicated in public and to the president, it is past time for China to respect the human rights of the Tibetan people, to allow foreign journalists and diplomats access to the region, and to engage the Dalai Lama in meaningful talks about the future of Tibet."

Obama previously had said he was conflicted about U.S. participation, but that "there should be consequences" for China if it does not take steps to respect rights and freedoms in Tibet.

In April of 2008, on the campaign trail, Obama declared that President Bush should boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympics if China didn't get its act together when it comes to human rights.

I have trouble reconciling that position with the way in which Obama has played host to Hu Jintao in 2011.

Obama showed great concern over the human rights record of the Chinese in 2008. Of course, atrocities have been committed for DECADES under the oppressive communist regime. That continues to be the case today.

Obama certainly didn't have a "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" moment with Hu. Instead, he brought in Hollywood celebrities and former Democrat presidents to honor him.

Human rights? Did someone say "human rights"?
______________________

Related:

China's Human Rights Record a Surprise?

Organs for Sale

Richard Cohen: 'The missing Obama'

Like a growing number of liberals, Richard Cohen is disillusioned. He's lost. He's abandoned.

Where is Obama?

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

From the Washington Post, Cohen writes:

In my set, I am known as the guy who always had some reservations about Barack Obama. Sure, I supported him in the primaries against Hillary Clinton and I voted for him, with both glee and enthusiasm, especially after John McCain uttered the most shocking words in American politics -- "Sarah Palin." But I had such qualms about Obama that I even disparaged his famous speech on race, which almost everyone else thought was just about the greatest ever given on the subject. I just reread it -- and I was a bit chastened (I was too severe), but mostly I was saddened. Where is the man who once gave that speech?

...The speech, delivered in Philadelphia in March 2008, was compelled by the rantings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had been Obama's pastor and spiritual adviser. Wright, a man of a certain age with the emotional scar tissue that comes from a life in a harshly racist society, had let loose his anger -- and it had been caught on tape and YouTubed around the world. A sermon that had a context and an appreciative audience looked like sheer demagoguery and madness on the small screen. Obama had to kiss off Wright.

He did so with style and with dignity. But more than that, to reread the speech is to be impressed once again with the fluidity of Obama's mind -- his logic, his reasoning and his immense writing talent, which made a great impression on the impressionable people in my profession.

But to reread the speech is also to come face to face with an Obama of keen moral clarity. Here was a man who knew why he was running for president and knew, also precisely, what he personified. He could talk to America as a black man and a white man -- having lived in both worlds. He could -- and he did -- explain to America what it is like to have been a black man of Wright's age and what it is like even now to be a black man of any age.

Somehow, though, that moral clarity has dissipated.

No.

Cohen is wrong about that alleged moral clarity of Obama.

It hasn't dissipated. It never was there.

Of course, liberals are disappointed. They're learning what about half the country knew before the election -- Obama isn't a great intellectual with an unwavering moral compass.

The fog that the liberals were lost in has lifted, revealing that they were duped into believing Obama possessed qualities he doesn't have.

The Obama who was leading a movement of professed political purity is the very same person who as president would not meet with the Dalai Lama, lest he annoy the very sensitive Chinese. He is the same man who bowed to the emperor of Japan when, in my estimation, the president of the United States should bow to no man. He is the same president who in China played the mannequin for the Chinese government, appearing at stage-managed news conferences and events -- and having his remarks sometimes censored. When I saw him in that picture alone on the Great Wall, he seemed to be thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?" If so, it was a good question.

The Barack Obama of that Philadelphia speech would not have let his attorney general, Eric Holder, announce the new policy for trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Sept. 11 defendants in criminal court, as if this were a mere departmental issue and not one of momentous policy. And the Barack Obama of the speech would have enunciated a principle of law and not an ad hoc system in which some alleged terrorists are tried in civilian courts and some before military tribunals. What is the principle in that: What works, works? Try putting that one on the Liberty Bell.

Of course, there's a difference between campaigning and governing. There is no reality to campaigning. You want Guantanamo closed, you say you'll close it. You want to close it as president, and all of a sudden it becomes a political crisis that costs you your White House counsel, an experienced and principled man named Gregory Craig. Governing is hard.

But governing has to be informed by moral clarity, by the sense that we always know the president's interior life -- his bottom lines. Obama's political career has been too brief for us to know his bottom lines by votes cast in any legislative body or decisions made as an administrator. He had little record but lots of rhetoric -- much of it morally stirring and beautifully written.

As president, though, he has tried so hard to be the un-George Bush that the former president's overweening moralism -- his insistence on seeing things as either black or white -- has become an Obama gray. Human rights in general has been treated as if it's a Republican idea. Obama should reread his Philadelphia speech. He'll find a good man there.

This is rich.

Cohen longs to have a president with moral clarity, "that we always know the president's interior life -- his bottom lines."

In terms of having clarity, Cohen wants Obama to be more like President George W. Bush. That's kind of funny, wanting what so many Leftists hated about President Bush.

Yes, the liberals are growing restless. They're experiencing anxiety. Obama is missing.

Reality has intruded.

Obama's Philadelphia speech was a campaign necessity, nothing more. Liberals inflated it to be something it wasn't. They inflated Obama into someone he wasn't, a man of conviction with a greater calling.

REALITY: The Obama that Cohen and the liberals now are trying to get back was never there in the first place. They won't be able to find what never was.

Nobel Peace Prize: Obama and Human Rights

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has crowned global citizen Obama their man of peace.

From the New York Times:

Appearing in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama said he was "surprised and deeply humbled" by the committee’s decision, and quickly put to rest any speculation that he might not accept the honor. Describing the award as an “affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations,” he said he would accept it as “a call to action.”

Obama may have been surprised when he learned on Friday morning that he had won the prize that had eluded Nobel Peace Prize nominees Winston Churchill, FDR, Mahatma Gandhi, and Pope John Paul II, but I don't think he was deeply humbled.

I can't recall ever buying that Obama was deeply humbled when he claimed to be.

The award is an affirmation not of American leadership. It's an affirmation of Obama apologizing for America, trashing America, citing that America is no greater than any other country.

...[W]hile Mr. Obama has generated considerable good will overseas — his foreign counterparts are eager to meet with him, and polls show he is hugely popular around the world — many of his policy efforts have yet to bear fruit, or are only just beginning to do so. North Korea has defied him with missile tests; Iran, however, recently agreed to restart nuclear talks, which Mr. Obama has called “a constructive beginning.”

In that sense, Mr. Obama is unlike past recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize such as former President Jimmy Carter, who won in 2002 for what presenters cited as decades of “untiring efforts” to seek peaceful end to international conflicts. (Mr. Carter failed to win in 1978, as some had expected, after he brokered a historic peace deal between Israel and Egypt.)

Thorbjorn Jagland, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and a former prime minister of Norway, said the president had already contributed enough to world diplomacy and international understanding to earn the award.

“We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future, but for what he has done in the previous year,” Mr. Jagland said. “We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do.”

SPECIFICALLY, what has Obama accomplished in the previous year?

SPECIFICALLY, what is Obama trying to do that makes him worthy of a prize that Gandhi never won inspite of being nominated repeatedly?

What is Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Obama's record on human rights?

An enlightening piece by Eli Lake appeared in The Washington Times just two days before Obama joined the ranks of Nobel Peace Prize recipients.

Human rights groups see Obama wavering

President's actions clash with pledges

Human rights groups are beginning to question President Obama's commitment to their issue as the administration engages authoritarian regimes, retains the option of sending terrorist suspects abroad to places where they might be tortured and puts off a presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Mr. Obama's decision to wait until after he visits China in November to meet with the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists - who was on Capitol Hill Tuesday receiving an award - comes after a series of decisions that have underlined a classic tension in U.S. foreign policy between the head and the heart.

While Mr. Obama campaigned for the White House by promising to restore American values, he also vowed to talk with governments that had been shunned by his predecessor. Now, those promises are bumping against each other.

"There has not been sufficient attention paid within this administration on how to counter the major challenges to human rights that we face today," said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House. "We see authoritarian regimes like China, Iran and Egypt and others getting granted opportunities for dialogue and engagement, but it's not clear from the outside how human rights concerns will be addressed in that engagement."

Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said he favors the engagement policy but also has concerns.

"The president's larger emphasis on engagement - that you should be talking to even those regimes that you hate the most - tends to empower those in the diplomatic corps whose core approach is making nice and handing out gold stars," he said.

"I am not against the engagement strategy, [but] they need to make it clear that engagement only works when there is pressure." he said.

...Mr. Obama took particular flak for not meeting with the Dalai Lama during his annual visit to Washington.

China sees U.S. high-level meetings with the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959, as implying support for Tibetan independence.

On Tuesday, the spiritual leader was the first person awarded the promotion of human rights prize named after the late Rep. Tom Lantos of California. Lantos arranged the Dalai Lama's first visit to Congress in 1987.

The Dalai Lama's special envoy, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, suggested that the Tibetan leader had taken no offense at the president's decision not to meet with him now.

"Taking a broader and long-term perspective, His Holiness agreed to meet the president after the November U.S.-China summit," he said. The White House also agreed to send a high-level delegation headed by senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett to Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama is based. This, Mr. Gyari said, "indicates a new approach on Tibet by the U.S. administration."

Beyond the Tibetan issue, criticism has focused on U.S. policy toward Sudan.

Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, called it disturbing that it has taken so long for the administration "to settle on a clear statement of their Sudan policy. I am not worried about premature engagement. What is not clear is the terms of engagement. What is the balance of incentives and pressures?"

Why aren't George Clooney and his Hollywood buddies speaking out against Obama's failure to address the crisis in Sudan?

Why isn't Colin Powell pressuring Obama the Great to act on the genocide?

I don't hear these alleged activists complaining about Obama and his administration.

Others worry that the administration's approach to Iran has focused too much on nuclear issues and not enough on political prisoners in the aftermath of mass protests against tainted June 12 presidential elections. The U.S. Agency for International Development recently canceled funding for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, a Connecticut-based group that documented Iranian government abuses.

Renee Redman, the executive director of the center, said, "We are very disappointed especially as we watched the events and human rights violations after the June 12 elections. I would have thought this would be a time when the government would want to fund organizations that are documenting human rights violations."

The group has since received money from the Canadian government.

A senior administration official noted that Undersecretary of State William J. Burns "raised the issue of human rights ... with the Iranians directly and had a frank exchange with them" when he met for 45 minutes with Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili in Geneva last week.

The way Obama and his administration addressed the events after the Iranian elections was disgraceful. Obama hemmed and hawed.

The U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, added, "The main point we underscore to our friends in the human rights community is that the positions the president is taking are done so in part because they are the best way to advance human rights. The notion that there is some kind of trade-off between acting in a coldly interest-based way versus working in an idealistic is a choice that the president rejects."

The official added that on Tibet, "a positive and constructive relationship with China will advance the goal of promoting human rights and cultural identity for the Tibetan people."

On Sudan, he said, U.S. "efforts to advance a comprehensive peace in the region will ultimately be the long-term guarantor of human rights for the people of Darfur and all the Sudanese people."

How many people are suffering and dying while waiting for Obama's strategy to bring results and relief from the human rights abuses?

I wonder if the Norwegian Nobel Committee knows.

Another area of concern is treatment of terrorist detainees. While Mr. Obama has earned praise from civil liberties groups for outlawing harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, the administration has reserved the option of sending suspected terrorists to foreign jails where they could face torture, a practice known as rendition. The administration also has said it may not meet its self-imposed deadline of the end of the year to close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"From a civil liberties perspective, President Obama's report card show an incomplete," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Rep. Jim McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat and co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, said he was concerned about Sudan and rendition but supported Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's priority of eradicating hunger.

"When a child is starving, that is a human rights issue," he said.

He added that if the White House missed its target for closing Guantanamo, many in Congress, including both Democrats and Republicans, were to blame.

"It's early yet to give anyone a grade," he said. "What they are trying to do is to come up with a human rights policy that is effective and not merely rhetorical."

"IT'S EARLY YET TO GIVE ANYONE A GRADE"?

That's priceless.

It's not too early to give Obama the Nobel Peace Prize.

PRICELESS.

Mr. McGovern's Republican co-chairman of the caucus, Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, was less understanding. He said he would give Mr. Obama "an F, failing," on human rights.

"I thought Bush was much better," Mr. Wolf said. "Bush appointed John Danforth as envoy to Sudan. He met with the Dalai Lama. I would send dissidents to the White House and Bush would meet with them."

Mr. Wolf said he was worried about the kind of advice Mr. Obama was getting on human rights.

"Someone has his ear and it's taking him the wrong way," he said.

Samantha Power, a mentor to Mr. Obama when he was in the Senate, is a senior director at the National Security Council for Human Rights and International Organizations. The Senate confirmed last month Michael Posner, the former president of Human Rights First, for the key post of assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. Maria Otero was confirmed in August to be the State Department's undersecretary for democracy and global affairs.

Kenneth Pollack, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said he saw some similarities between Mr. Obama's approach to human rights and that of President George H.W. Bush.

"This is the Democratic version of realism, but by the same token, the president has rhetorically championed American values and we don't know what the policies will look like at the end of the day because they are still working them out," Mr. Pollack said.

Steve Clemons, director of foreign policy programs at the New America Foundation, called the Obama policy "progressive pragmatism."

"The fact is, just like Richard Nixon, Obama has come into office with an extraordinarily bad national security and economic portfolio to restore America's leverage in the world and its power," Mr. Clemons said. "He has to reinvent an engagement strategy with global stakeholders that can create a strategic leap out of the incrementalism and inertia driving things today. This is frustrating for human rights groups because pragmatic deal-making that ultimately could restore America's ability to achieve great progressive goals is looked at by many of them as an immoral compromise."

Excuses are cheap. They're oh so easy to make.

They're worthless.

Obama is not delivering when it comes to championing human rights, another broken promise.

Obama Calls for Bush to Boycott Olympics Opening Ceremony

UPDATE, April 12, 2008: Bush unlikely to boycott Olympics
_______________

Barack Obama is following Hillary's lead. He, too, wants President Bush to be a no-show at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing.

LEVITTOWN, Pa. -- Barack Obama joined Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday in calling for President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Clinton had commended British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for announcing that he will skip the August ceremonies in China's capital, and called on Obama and likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain to join her in urging Bush to do the same.

Brown continues to insist that he never intended to be at the opening ceremony. His absence supposedly is not a political statement or connected to a boycott.

In effect, Hillary is commending Brown for his schedule that never included an appearance in Beijing for the opening ceremony in the first place.

Obama did later in the day; his campaign issued a statement in which, for the first time, he urged Bush to boycott the festivities.

...Obama said a boycott "should be firmly on the table," but that a decision should be made closer to the Games.

"If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the president should boycott the opening ceremonies," he said. "As I have communicated in public and to the president, it is past time for China to respect the human rights of the Tibetan people, to allow foreign journalists and diplomats access to the region, and to engage the Dalai Lama in meaningful talks about the future of Tibet."

Obama previously had said he was conflicted about U.S. participation, but that "there should be consequences" for China if it does not take steps to respect rights and freedoms in Tibet.

Obama seems to be playing catch-up with Hillary. He had to issue a statement after she was making headlines on the matter.

I think it's weird that Obama wants to talk to tyrants and terrorists unconditionally but he thinks going to China for the opening ceremony of the Olympics may be inappropriate.

He's concerned about human rights yet he said the war that freed the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's torture and brutality was "dumb."

I'll say what I've said before:

Why has this opening ceremony taken on such importance?

Why has attendance become a sort of test of a leader's support for "basic human freedoms"?

That makes no sense to me. Bush has spent his tenure in office leading the fight for freedom; and the Dems have led persistent attacks against his efforts.

The opening ceremony, a few hours-- That's what matters. That's everything.

Of course, attendance at the games themselves and the closing ceremony wouldn't be a problem at all. For some reason, that wouldn't send the wrong message to the Chinese.

That's ridiculous.

This sudden concern about conditions in China ticks me off. What do Obama and Hillary think has been going on in China for DECADES under this oppressive communist regime?

Bush and the Olympics Opening Ceremony

Should President Bush attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing?

Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, say he should not.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has said he plans to attend the Beijing Olympics, but the White House has not ruled out the possibility that he may miss the opening ceremony, which China hopes to use as an international showcase.

Critics of China say that Bush avoiding the event would be a powerful sign of international anger over China's violent response to demonstrating Buddhist monks in Tibet. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokeswoman said Wednesday that Brown will not attend the opening ceremony.

Over two days, White House press secretary Dana Perino has faced questions about Bush's attendance at the opening gala for games that China hopes to use to make a statement about its rising economic and political power. She says Bush will go to the Olympics.

But, pressed by reporters whether she could say if Bush will attend the opening ceremony, Perino said Wednesday, "I cannot."

She says the reason is not uncommon: "I'm not trying to signal anything by saying that. I don't have the president's schedule. It is way too far in advance for us to announce the president's schedule."

Perino said Bush "has been very clear that he believes that the right thing for him to do is to continue to press the Chinese on a range of issues, from human rights and democracy, political speech freedoms and religious tolerance, and to do that publicly and privately, before, during and after the Olympics."

Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Robert Byrd and Robert Menendez sent Bush a letter Wednesday saying the crackdown in Tibet "should be unacceptable to anyone who believes in basic human freedoms."

"We believe that your attendance at the opening ceremonies, rightly or not, would send the implicit message to the world that the United State condones the intolerance that has been demonstrated by these actions of the Chinese government," the letter said.

Aren't the Democrats always yapping about reaching out to countries, including our enemies?

Aren't the Dems always saying that the Bush administration squandered all the post-9/11 goodwill directed toward the United States and we need to repair broken relationships with other countries?

Don't the Dems complain whenever the Bush administration stands firm on its policy of not negotiating with terrorists?

Aren't the Dems constantly calling for dialogue with every tyrant and terrorist on the planet?

Yes.

Nonetheless, in spite of the cries to keep diplomatic channels open with the most brutal thugs and human rights violators in the world, Hillary and some of her Dem colleagues (probably most) believe that Bush attending the opening ceremony of the Olympics would send the wrong message to China.

That act alone supposedly would tell the world that the U.S. condones the intolerance that has been demonstrated by the Chinese government.

What a joke!

Yes, forget everything else the Bush administration has done to pressure the Chinese regarding human rights.

Disregard everything except attendance at the opening ceremony.

...Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told lawmakers Wednesday that the United States is looking at the possibility of a U.S. consulate in Tibet. She said the United States has urged China to allow more U.S. diplomats into the region, saying access granted by China so far was not good enough.

"The United States," she added, "has been very active in making the case to the Chinese that they are going to be better off to deal with moderate forces on Tibet like the Dalai Lama; that they should open dialogue with him."

Why has this opening ceremony taken on such importance?

Why has attendance become a sort of test of a leader's support for "basic human freedoms"?

That makes no sense to me. Bush has spent his tenure in office leading the fight for freedom; and the Dems have led persistent attacks against his efforts.

The opening ceremony, a few hours-- That's what matters. That's everything.

Of course, attendance at the games themselves and the closing ceremony wouldn't be a problem at all. For some reason, that wouldn't send the wrong message to the Chinese.

Right.

The IOC knew exactly what it was getting into when it gave China the honor of hosting the Olympics.

The country is ruled by an oppressive communist regime. No kidding.

The IOC permits countries that do not respect the basic human freedoms of its citizens to host the Olympics. So what else is new?

The IOC looked the other way when it received reports that Uday Hussein tortured Iraqis Olympic athletes. Iraq was not expelled from the Olympic community in spite of the fact that the IOC was aware of the atrocities for years.

Let's be honest. The IOC doesn't have a great human rights record.

This whole mess drips with hypocrisy.