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China does worse things than lip sync and use 12-year-old gymnasts
If this doesn't make your blood boil, nothing does:
BEIJING — In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote.
The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China's authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country's long streak of fast economic growth.
But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of "re-education through labor" this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.
They became the most recent examples of people punished for submitting applications to protest. A few would-be demonstrators have simply disappeared, at least for the duration of the Games, squelching already diminished hopes that the influx of foreigners and the prestige of holding the Games would push China's leaders to relax their tight grip on political expression.
The Olympics are what they are for the athletes. but President Bush lent America's Good Housekeeping seal of approval to this authoritarian thug regime with his presense at Beijing. Nicholas Kristof, who's done some more amazing reporting out of China this month, argues today that Bush was right to attend these games, but should have spoken out more forcefully on these human rights outrages.
But everybody knew Bush would be weak on human rights -- which is why I still think he should not have attended, period.