PRESIDENT BUSH: ENEMY OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, CODDLER OF COMMUNIST REPRESSION

Courtesy of www.crooksandliars.com, I found this execrable link (news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060420/ap_on_go_pr_wh/hu_protester_11) in which President George W. Bush, big-mouth Christian and notoriously staunch conservative Republican, apologized to Communist Chinese President Hu Jintao for having his personal tranquility violated by demonstrators protesting Chinese government persecution of the Falun Gong.

Falun Gong is a form of Qigong, a school of meditation and exercise, which is said to restore one's inner balance. Sounds healthy enough to me. The problem, for the officially atheistic communist regime, is that Falun Gong has a significant load of new age spiritual baggage. The Chinese government has described Falun Gong as "a dangerous cult" and has been accused of repressing their rights by imprisonment, torture and even harvesting practitioners' organs. Because China is a secretive dictatorship it is hard to know exactly how much of this is actually true but, given the government's past record of violent oppression, the smart money is on government-sponsored brutality.

So how does President Bush respond to his dictator/guest when Hu finds himself greeted by a good, old fashioned protests, which is the sort of thing that's supposed to make our democracy great? He apologizes, natch. Once again we see where President Bush's real sympathies lie: with an unelected overlord. In view of how comfy Bush has been hob-nobbing with the likes of Saudi royalty, this is no real surprise.

The question is: Will the Democrats make hay out of Bush's implied support for a communist dictatorship's oppression of a minority religion? It would seem a no-brainer. But, Amy Sullivan notwithstanding, you know Democrats.