Jun
12
The Heritage Foundation’s John Tkacik has some advice for the Bush Administration about how to deal with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing:
In August, President Bush and his retinue of more than 500 high officials, aides, factotums, security and communications specialists, and drivers will descend upon Beijing. The President’s presence in Beijing, and all its attendant hoopla and media coverage, will make quite an impression on the world’s newspaper readers and CNN-watchers. In short, he will not have the luxury of anonymity at the Beijing Olympics.
But the President of the United States need not lend his prestige to China’s global debut as host of the Olympic Games—prestige that China craves. If President Bush hopes to influence China’s behavior, not just with Tibetans, but with Beijing’s many friends around the world that are “America’s adversaries,” he must leverage his attendance and that of his family and even his father. He should also have a confidential chat with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who also plans to be in Beijing, and the leaders of other democracies. Nothing flashy need be arranged.
President Bush needs only to let it be known, quietly, that he is rethinking his participation in the Beijing Olympics, and his press spokesmen need only respond to questions with a shrug of the shoulder and a noncommittal grunt.
China will get the message.
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[...] of the Olympics in Beijing, I posted about why President Bush should not attend the games, such as this argument from the Heritage Foundation. But as long as Mr. Bush is in Beijing, here is an excerpt from [...]