Hu's on First?

Because a screaming protester interrupted the welcoming ceremony for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao, our own President Bush saw fit to apologize to the Chinese leader.

The protester, Dr. Wenyi Wang, a doctor of pathology from New York, is an adherent of Falun Gong, a religious movement that is persecuted in China. Thousands of Falun Gong members have reportedly died in custody over the last several years in a brutal crackdown by the Chinese police state – our second largest trading partner. (The U.S. trade deficit with China hit $202 billion last year, our highest ever with a single country.) China has also been conducting a huge military buildup that threatens our Asian allies and American power in the Pacific.
Who would have ever imagined that a conservative Republican President would publicly apologize to a visiting dictator for an exercise of free speech – however rude – on American soil? Wang’s interruption was rude – but democracy is rude! The Chinese, like most police states, don’t allow for rudeness.
You can’t help wondering whether the Bush administration secretly admires China – the world’s first totalitarian capitalist state!