I believe that if the election would have been won outright we wouldn’t be having this discussion. The Chinese see a President elected under dubious circumstances (I said it. Because of Florida, whatever the outcome, it would have been percieved as dubious to the world). They’re testing the waters. One would have thought that their toes would have gotten cold after a week, but here we are.
They’ll back down (soon I hope). The US simply needs to give them a way out that saves face. Look, the US didn’t shirk the responsibility of accidentally bombing their embassy. We don’t shirk responsibility of mistakes like this. Let them posture for a while, but it’s gettig old.
Interesting that I saw Bill Richardson on “Hardball with Chris Matthews” last week, and he said the Bush administration’s handling of this situation with China has been “just right.”
He noted that we have not overheated the situation with rhetoric and ultimatums, and we have given China an out by expressing our regret, etc. He (not me; him) claimed it’s been handled very well from a diplomatic perspective.
Richardson is:
A. a Democrat
B. the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
C. Until about two months ago, a member of Bill Clinton’s Cabinet.
I guess I’m more inclined to believe him than Brian Bunnyhurt, for some reason.
As for the Florida election, did you read USA Today last week? Let it go, already. Unless you’re going for the Guinness Book of World’s Records for being proven wrong the most times.
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1- Of course I see the irony. I mean The US, the world’s biggest power and one of the longer lasting democracies in history having a presidential election so shameful to the point the Brazilians ( and Chinese and French and everybody else including the Vietnamese ) could laugh at it. How could I miss the irony?
2- Do your history, we weren’t under the rule of a dictator. We were governed by a military council(is that the word? ).It was a dictatorship anyway but if you’re going to be offensive at least get your facts straight.
3- ( I was going to do that “Hi Opal” thing for the first time but I decided I’ll leave my grettings for latter when I actually meet her or maybe I’ll send her an e-mail introducing myself. Also I’m too pissed with Jodi to waste my time writing "Hi Opal"s when I could be adressing him :))
This dictatorship was promoted, financed and supported by the USofA through most of it’s existance so if someone is to blame it’s you.
4- These “tin-pot dictators” killed hundreds of people and tortured more. And what was the Us doing? Sending CIA operatives to teach us torturing techniques. So as I would want my country to stay out of the torturing-killing-censorship-hipocrisy business I don’t believe we should be taking notes.
5- Since the end of the military rule we haven’t had any problems with our presidential elections so if you want any advice all you got to do is ask
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I realize not all Americans behave so arrogantly as Jodi and I actually am not mad either with the US or Jodi himself, but that just couldn’t go unchallenged.
Yeah that’s brilliant. Maybe Bush can put on some bad Chinese-person makeup and do a little Jerry Lewis schtick. “Me so sowrry! Me so sowrry!” That would go over REAL well.
me thinks you underestimate the Bushmiester and don’t have that great of an understanding of the internal workings of the Chinese gov’t (not that I do either)
If you watched the video wherein Bush pauses forgetfully between the words “we regret” and “the death of the chinese pilot” and then does one of his patented smirks with fingerpointing while saying “and our prayers go out to his family”; that’s pretty much exactly what’s happened.
We sure will keep that in mind. In the meantime, we’ve been thinking about undertaking a mass clear cutting and burning operation in our national forests–can you give us any pointers?
That one’s so easy that you don’t even have to be from Brazil to answer it.
The first thing you do is set up the country a president who doesn’t intend to honor his campaign pledge to increase funding for forest preservation http://www.timesofindia.com/today/10woru1.htm
Ah, I understand! As a developing country (the topic of the article, after all), you should keep burning your forests until a big rich country promises to give you more money!
I have a great deal of animosity towards the Chinese government. I don’t see how any decent person could not have any animosity towards the Chinese government. Remember that China tried to slap us around with this first. I see no reason why we shouldn’t slap them around a little.
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I’d call a blockade of Cuba a very good example of heavy handed diplomacy. But it worked out fairly well in the end don’t you think? Of course I’m not saying we need to send our ships off the coast of China or impose any other drastic measures at this time. Of course we did win that little cold war against the Soviet Union. I’m sure we’d win a cold war against China as well.
Of course, I don’t understand the question… it first supposes that the figurative “heap” (do you know what an analogy is?) belongs solely to me (how I wish), and it next supposes that I am a country.
Perhaps you’d like to ask a different question that DOESN’T butcher a popular figurative expression?
Sure!
Oh now, wait a minute!
You don’t intend to burn more trees than us do you? Because if you do I’m not lending you my manual. I am dead sick of watching you people do more to damage nature than anybody else. We also want our share in the polluting business!
Know what to do? Teach us how to have 25% of the world’s polluting gas emissions and to consume 1/3 of the world’s power with 4% of it’s the population.
Do that and I’ll lend you, no, I’ll give you my tree cutting manual.
PS. Can I ask to would you need to do that with your forests? I mean, you haven’t got that many of your people starving do you?
Sure!
Oh now, wait a minute!
You don’t intend to burn more trees than us do you? Because if you do I’m not lending you my manual. I am dead sick of watching you people do more to damage nature than anybody else. We also want our share in the polluting business!
Know what to do? Teach us how to have 25% of the world’s polluting gas emissions and to consume 1/3 of the world’s power with 4% of it’s the population.
Do that and I’ll lend you, no, I’ll give you my tree cutting manual.
PS. Can I ask to would you need to do that with your forests? I mean, you haven’t got that many of your people starving do you?
It’s easy… just make yourself the most powerful country on Earth (I’ve yet to see any information from Mr. Bunnyhurt or anybody else that contradicts this notion).
“1/3 of the world’s power”? Last I heard, we use our own power. Sucks to be you if you can’t keep up, pal. Gettin’ a little green-eyed, there?
When they start shit like “The world’s laughing at you!”, they make it clear that their intentions are closer to a Pit thread than a Great Debate.
Getting back to the OP. While it seems quite likely that W doesn’t know much about China, His FATHER was ambassador there. HE certainly knows a few things, and you’re a fool if you think that baby bush isn’t talking to Dad about this one.
I’d have to say that the general attitude of this administration toward the world is off base: needlessly Belligerent and unwilling to listen
However I would say that the tone so far on this incident is just right. Perhaps a bit to haughty at first, but they toned it down nicely and have kept this from blowing up in to a full scale hostage situation. At the same time, they haven’t backed down a bit on the fundamental point, which is that the Crash is China’s fault and we will not either take blame for it or promise to change our ways.
My guess is that the only reason China is being hard nosed about the apology thing is because it gives them an excuse to drag this thing out. Meanwhile they can reverse-engineer the hell out of that plane.
I can’t say as I blame them either. I figure we would be doing the same if the situation were reversed.
Once they decide that the harm they are doing to themselves with US and world opinion is worse than the intelligence benefit they get from having the plane, then they will suddenly discover that they don’t need an apology after all.
) could laugh at it. How could I miss the irony?