Obama Rejects Dalai Lama
[Guest post by DRJ]
In October 2007, President Bush honored the Dalai Lama with the Congressional Gold Medal:
“Though Bush said the ceremony was not meant to antagonize the Chinese, he made repeated references to religious oppression.
“Americans cannot look to the plight of the religiously oppressed and close our eyes or turn away,” Bush said.
Calling the Dalai Lama a “universal symbol of peace and tolerance, a shepherd to the faithful and a keeper of the flame for his people,” Bush presented the medallion to the Dalai Lama.”
Bipartisan leaders lauded the Dalai Lama for promoting peace. President Bush noted that, as a boy, the Dalai Lama had kept a “model of the Statue of Liberty by his bedside.”
Two years later, the Dalai Lama isn’t welcome in Obama’s White House because it might upset the Chinese:
“President Barack Obama has refused to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington this week in a move to curry favour with the Chinese.
The decision came after China stepped up a campaign urging nations to shun the Tibetan spiritual leader.
It means Mr Obama will become the first president not to welcome the Nobel peace prize winner to the White House since the Dalai Lama began visiting Washington in 1991.
The Buddhist monk arrived in Washington on Monday for a week of meetings with Congressional leaders, celebrity supporters and interest groups, but the president will not see him until after he has made his first visit to China next month.”
This is just another example of Obama’s willingness to make unilateral concessions to placate the world’s most dangerous regimes. It’s also an example of Obama’s hypocrisy as a candidate, President and man:
“Mr Obama has changed his position on Tibet since his election campaign.
In April 2008, he was joined by Hillary Clinton, then his rival for the Democratic nomination and now his Secretary of State, in calling on George W Bush to boycott the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in protest at the bloody repression of a popular uprising in Tibet.
“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,” they said.”
This is not what a man of principle would do and it’s not what the President of the United States of America should do.
— DRJ
Dude, the Dalai Lama got the Congressional Gold Medal not the Congressional Medal of Honor. The latter is for American service members who did something extraordinary in battle. It’s usually awarded posthumously.
Jim S. (48b605) — 10/5/2009 @ 3:23 pmThanks, Jim S. It was a stupid mistake and I’m grateful you pointed it out so I could fix it.
DRJ (b008f8) — 10/5/2009 @ 3:26 pmNo sweat. I’m just an amateur military historian so it stuck out to me.
Jim S. (48b605) — 10/5/2009 @ 3:37 pmGreetings:
What was that second version of the golden rule, he who has the gold makes the rule?
Now that the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) owns, what, a couple of trillion dollars of our debt, all of a sudden we light up the Empire State Building for them, fly their flag on the national Mall, and dump on the Dalai Lama. Seems to me that the PRC has, to paraphrase V.I. Lenin, bought from us the debt they will use to hang us.
11B40 (c54e51) — 10/5/2009 @ 3:40 pmObama has principles? No room in the Empty Suit(tm).
SPQR (26be8b) — 10/5/2009 @ 3:48 pmChairman Maobama going Chinese over Tibet. Where’s Richard Gere and the hollywierd crowd??? Crickets chirping…….
J. Raymond Wright (e8d0ca) — 10/5/2009 @ 3:58 pmFord snubbed Solzhenitsyn and never lived it down. It was the low point of his presidency. Unfortunately, it will not be the low point of Obama’s.
Mike K (2cf494) — 10/5/2009 @ 5:04 pmI checked my Sunday paper in the offering circulars for Jewel and Dominicks and I did not see any Free Tibet listed. Obama’s influence is obviously spreading to the retail level.
daleyrocks (718861) — 10/5/2009 @ 5:17 pmActually, I understand that Gere is extremely pissed right now, and is going to make a statement on the matter shortly. How ironic it would be if a Hollywood actor showed more cojones than Obama.
Dmac (5ddc52) — 10/5/2009 @ 5:43 pmReally, Obama? You’re not gonna meet with the Dalai Lama? What the hell’s next, taking a posthumous jab at Ghandi for disrupting the colonial workings of a US ally? I’m gonna go sit in the UNM parking lot tomorrow to watch the cars of my fashionably liberal college peers explode from the cognitive dissonance of their side-by-side “Obama/Biden 08” and “Free Tibet” stickers…
Leviticus (30ac20) — 10/5/2009 @ 6:18 pmBreak it to them gently, Leviticus.
DRJ (b008f8) — 10/5/2009 @ 6:27 pm#10 Leviticus:
A terrific illustration of the syndrome.
The Dalai Lama, quite liberal in some respects, also has a deep understanding and appreciation of individual liberty, and its suppression.
Not the kind of guy the O!ne wants to pal around with.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 10/5/2009 @ 6:28 pmDmac, we’ll have to redefine “irony” when all is done.
SPQR (26be8b) — 10/5/2009 @ 6:30 pmSPQR – As we have seen, they are not content to redefine just irony. Taxes, stimulus, the just war in Afghanistan, etc …
JD (145e30) — 10/5/2009 @ 6:35 pmOh my GOD! it is all my fault. I made a voodoo doll of Obama and cursed it – “May you never make an effective and/or principled decision again.” And it WORKED!!!!!!
Californio (55068d) — 10/5/2009 @ 7:23 pmThis just makes me ill, from the WaPo,
“We’ve got the classic case of a Western government yet again conceding to Chinese pressure that is imaginary long after that Chinese pressure has ceased to exist,” said Robert Barnett, a Tibetan expert at Columbia University. “The Chinese must be falling over themselves with astonishment at what Western diplomats will give them without being asked. I don’t know what the poker analogy would be. ‘Please, see all my cards and take my money, too?’ “
Would someone in this administration please locate their backbone?
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
Dana (863a65) — 10/5/2009 @ 7:36 pmDRJ, did my comment got caught in moderation?
Dana (863a65) — 10/5/2009 @ 7:55 pmSPQR – it would nice if someone like Gere would take a stand for once in his life, but I’m probably whistling in the dark. When in doubt, the toadies and suck – ups will always fall into line.
Dmac (5ddc52) — 10/6/2009 @ 8:00 amNo, but it’s exactly what I knew Barack Obama was going to do.
Can we stop calling him a good man now?
OK, I’ll shut up now. Until the next time somebody who theoretically is on my side offers some gratuitous throw away line about a liberal like Obama is a “good man” who’s “heart is in the right place.”
Oh, really? Well, I’m sure they’d tell you all those “Free Tibet!” bumper stickers prove that, but as Mark Steyn commented the last person who’d lift a finger to “Free Tibet!” is somebody who’d paste one of those things on their Volvo.
So if you think these hyenas are “good people” I say you just haven’t seen them hit their stride yet.
And I apologize to any hyenas that may be reading this as I’ve been to Africa and can at least respect a hyena as a predator and honest, hard-working scavenger.
It’s just the first analogy that came to mind when thinking of this “good man” who between pronouncements about being his “brother’s keeper” can apparently spend enough on ice cream in a single weekend for his daughters who I’m sure he does love very much to the point he’d never inflict the health care system he has in store for the rest of us to, you know, slip an equal amount into the mail and send it to Kenya that would double his actual brother’s actual annual income and prove he was actually his brother’s keeper.
Hyenas are more compassionate than this man.
Steve (40b3f7) — 10/6/2009 @ 11:16 am