Obama & the Dalai Lama

All right, this claptrap is going from being simply absurd to truly pathological. The Republicans have mounted an objection to President Obama allegedly not meeting with the Dalai Lama during his current trip to the US because he is appeasing China. Boy, that Obama just likes to appease everyone, doesn’t he?! From terrorists, to Nazis, to the combination of the two (i.e. Republicans), to the Russians and naturally to their communist brethren the Chinese; he’s just a natural born appeaser, isn’t he?! It’s merely too bad he isn’t a natural born citizen.

In the most recent episode of Mad Men, the protagonist’s wife is assigned by her women’s community group to ‘lobby’ a state government official to halt the construction of a local reservoir. Incidentally, said official is a Republican and thusly bestows upon her this gem of political wisdom: “When you have no power, stall…” While the program may be fictional, this strategy employed by the GOP is anything but. What makes their stalling tactics even more egregious is that not only do they technically have no power, they literally have no ideas. And I hope you will forgive me for believing that across the board opposition to any and everything does not quite qualify as being an idea.

So back to the Chinese; what Obama is engaging in here is a little something called diplomacy. I realize this word is not included in the GOP dictionary, or at least is buried very deep within, so I suppose it is understandable yet by no means acceptable that they are so bewildered by this concept. In case they forgot, those little ditties called the ‘Bush tax cuts,’ the ‘Wars in Afghanistan & Iraq,’ ‘TARP,’ etc. are all on our Chinese Express credit card and it would greatly behoove us not to blatantly tick them off lest they decide to say, foreclose on our country. Some members of congress have already taken it upon themselves to “build trust and confidence" in China and inform them that the US will not be able to pay them pack. In any event, their favorite punching bag will be in Beijing later this year and will meet up with the Dalai Lama at that point in time. Despite some understandable concern his people have already said “no hard feelings.”

Finally, since when are the Republicans such vocal supporters of the Tibetan freedom movement, anyway?! I’m pretty sure Tibetans don’t believe in the wonders of free market capitalism and last I heard have not yet taken Jesus Christ to be their lord and savior. Yet any group of oppressed people, regardless of their ardent opposition to materialism, who can be used as a bludgeon against Herr Obama is obviously all right by them.