FRATTO: We believe Beijing needs to respect Tibetan culture; they need to respect multi-ethnicity in their society. We regret the tensions between ethnic groups and Beijing. The President has said consistently that Beijing needs to have a dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
Q Ethnic groups in Beijing?
MR. FRATTO: And Beijing, so between --
Q Ethnic groups and Beijing.
MR. FRATTO: Right.
Q Has there been any contact between the U.S. government and China about this?
MR. FRATTO: I'm not aware -- not that I've heard since we took off.
Yes, that's got them shaking in their boots. "Got any comments on Tibet?" "Yeah, it's a real shame." "Hey, look, a campaign slur!" And like the Olympics committee of 1939, the one in charge of the upcoming Beijing games is throwing up its hands and claiming there's nothing it can do. From the serene safety of a tropical paradise, we get this stellar soundbite of empathy:
The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, rejected calls for a boycott of the Games to protest the crackdown.
“We believe that the boycott doesn’t solve anything,” he said Saturday on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, The Associated Press reported. “On the contrary. It is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing.”
That's the same thing they said when Hitler hosted. And they even suggested back then, as they are doing now, that carrying on with the games might make some tiny change for the better. Well, you remember how well that worked out.
