totally misguided

so, if you've been following the news you know that the president of china, hu jintao, is visiting the US. you probably also know that at his arrivial ceremony a protestor started shouting against him.

she apparently started out with:

"President Bush, stop him from killing," the woman shouted, to the surprise of hundreds of guests spread across the lawn on a sunny, warm day.

now, i would be suprised too: she is asking BUSH to STOP someone from killing. this just seems totally misguided to me. i mean, bush is the "war president", and wars involve death, as we all know.

in response:

Bush leaned over and whispered to Hu, "You're OK,"

yeah, don't worry hu--i'm down with the killing, and we can still be good buddies. good thing we've got such a friendly president.

the article goes on to say:

Chinese leaders place high importance on protocol and symbolism, and Bush moved promptly to deal with the protest on the lawn. Once they reached the Oval Office, Bush apologized to his guest.

"He just said, 'This was unfortunate' and 'I'm sorry it happened,'" said Dennis Wilder, acting senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council staff.

phew, you wouldn't want the president of china thinking people actually have a right to protest! or that we're not all down with state sanctioned murder.

"It's hugely embarrassing," said Derek Mitchell, a former Asia adviser at the Pentagon and now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

China "must know that this Bush administration is good at controlling crowds for themselves, and the fact that they couldn't control this is going to play to their worst fears and suspicions about the United States, into mistrust about American intentions toward China."

that's right--they might think we're a democracy, that we'll use those constitutional rights. and then we probably couldn't be such good buddies.