May 18, 2010

Yet Another Day In…

The World Of Barack Obama.

In a “candid and constructive” human rights dialogue with officials from the People’s Republic of China last week, Obama administration officials brought up Arizona’s new immigration-enforcement law, telling the Chinese Communists it was an example of a “troubling trend” in the United States and an indication of “discrimination or potential discrimination” in American society.

Ironically, the State Department’s most recent report on human rights in China indicates that the government there restricts the internal travel of its own citizens.

“We brought it up early and often,” Posner told reporters on Friday. “It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination, and that these are issues very much being debated in our own society,” Posner said. The Chinese did not raise any concerns about Chinese people visiting Arizona, Posner added.

During the press briefing, Posner explained that “part of a mature relationship is that you have an open discussion where you not only raise the other guy’s problems, but you raise your own, and you have a discussion about it. We did plenty of that. We had experts from the U.S. side, for example, yesterday, talking about treatment of Muslim Americans in an immigration context. We had a discussion of racial discrimination. We had a back-and-forth about how each of our societies are dealing with those sorts of questions.”

Well, I suppose there’s something a little less malodorous than a president travelling the globe and apologizing for America at each stopover than a president and his retinue engaging in a little fat chewing, over eggrolls and tea, on comparitive human rights topics with the Communist Chinese.

In a “candid and constructive” human rights dialogue with officials from the People’s Republic of China last week, Obama administration officials brought up Arizona’s new immigration-enforcement law, telling the Chinese Communists it was an example of a “troubling trend” in the United States and an indication of “discrimination or potential discrimination” in American society.

Ironically, the State Department’s most recent report on human rights in China indicates that the government there restricts the internal travel of its own citizens.

“We brought it up early and often,” Posner told reporters on Friday. “It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination, and that these are issues very much being debated in our own society,” Posner said. The Chinese did not raise any concerns about Chinese people visiting Arizona, Posner added.

During the press briefing, Posner explained that “part of a mature relationship is that you have an open discussion where you not only raise the other guy’s problems, but you raise your own, and you have a discussion about it. We did plenty of that. We had experts from the U.S. side, for example, yesterday, talking about treatment of Muslim Americans in an immigration context. We had a discussion of racial discrimination. We had a back-and-forth about how each of our societies are dealing with those sorts of questions.”

Have a “candid and constructive” human rights dialogue, maybe swap a few recipes for fair and balanced media, or for reasoning with those who take umbrage with government policy.

Of course.

The People’s Republic of China is “an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party constitutionally is the paramount source of power,” according to the State Department’s 2009 Human Rights report on China.

The report also states, “Individuals and groups, especially those deemed politically sensitive by the government, continued to face tight restrictions on their freedom to assemble, practice religion, and travel.”

Come on, Mr. President, when are you going to go down to Venezuela and do some serious presidential bonding with Hugo Chavez?

Oh, wait, my bad…You already have.

by @ 5:25 pm. Filed under Communist China, Human Rights, The President
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