I did not intend to slam the President with my first comment. I simply pointed out that the Bush family has always given China the benefit of any doubt you could scrape up — possibly because of his father’s service there. But in this respect, he is like so many other people who find reasons to give China a pass where they would not do so for another country. CEO’s see cheap labour and a huge market (an illusion); romantics see the wisdom and traditions of Confucius and Lao Tzu; revolutionaries see a billion poor souls just waiting for a spark to mobilize them; missionaries see vast numbers of potential Christians. Potential is the key. China acts as a mirror in which everyone seems to see their virtues multiplied by a billion. The President is no different. Should he go? I don’t think so. Not because his non attendance accomplishes anything in particular but because his attendance does indeed make a symbolic point. The leaders of the Chinese prison state understand this. That is why they wanted the Olympics in the first place. That is why the IOC should be ashamed of itself (were that possible for that venal group of faux aristocrats). As for our President, though I do not agree with him on very much, I must begrudgingly admire how he has dealt with being the one chosen by history to make the tough decisions of the age when everyone else just wants to be a critic or a cheerleader. I’m convinced the Democrat Party, a group Louis XIV would find overly monarchist, would be favoring tax cuts and free markets if Mr. Bush had only announced he supported socialist methods of dealing with our problems.
