April 20, 2006, Hu you gonna call?
That might be good old Beijing and the People's Republic of China's leader, Hu Jintao. The President urged the Chinese leader to take up a greater role in negotiating and resolving issues surrounding North Korea and Iran, the world's two current most irritating problems (aside from the President himself, of course).
Evidently, a Falun Gong protestor (sporting a media pass originally issued to someone named Gannon) made her way in and started screaming at the two autocrats during a White House omerta ceremony. (Bush later apologized to Hu for our having a far less efficient state security apparatus than that of Beijing, where protestors are shot in the open.)
I guess it makes perfect sense to ask your financial sugar daddy to be your diplomatic sugar daddy, even as your sugar daddy does things like thwarting UN Security Council efforts to thwart Darfur genocide by blocking sanctions against Sudan, blocking strong UN action against Iran, and of course, sporting its own always impressive human rights record, including recent revelations that good old Yahoo! was helpful in jailing a dissident writer in China.
Let's just say that when you owe as much money as we do to Beijing... you don't ask too many questions... one answer to all our woes, however, would seem to be... "Hu".
Update: While irony died a long time ago, we would be remiss if we did not point out that New York's own Wen Yi Wang, could face up to six months in prison on misdemeanor charges for shouting at Chinese leader Hu Jintao to stop repressing Falun Gong (truth is no defense when the Emperor is embarassed in front of his banker.) This proves what we suspected, of course, to wit, the President's imploring of Hu to embrace "freedom" and "democracy" is, in fact, little more than a show for the benefit of the rubes. Both concepts remain somewhat illusory to Presidents Hu and Bush, but apparently, it is some kind of a tradition for American presidents to implore Chinese leaders to embrace "freedom" and "democracy". Whatever they are.