1115.org

Here’s what the Chinese government is selling today: The Dalai Lama is “the mastermind of (the) violent uprising” that constitutes “Tibet’s most intense unrest against Chinese rule for nearly two decades”.

Or maybe I should rephrase that; you can’t be selling if no one is actually buying.

So: the Chinese government is engaged in a futile, idiotic attempt to portray the Dalai Lama — arguably the foremost apostle of non-violent protest in the world today — as some kind of quasi-terrorist leader. The rhetoric is ludicrously absurd (even for the Chinese):

“We are in the midst of a fierce struggle involving blood and fire, a life and death struggle with the Dalai Clique,” Tibet’s Communist Party secretary, Zhang Qingli, told a teleconference of the region’s government and Party leaders.
[…]
… China’s official Xinhua news agency called Dharamsala (the Indian city where the Dalai Lama is based) an “epicentre of lies”, repeating Premier Wen’s assertion that the unrest was “organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique”.

Unsurprisingly, the Dalai clique — and its brazen international network of supporters — is putting out an entirely different version of events. So difficult to know who to believe!

We should all urge President Bush to take a stand and do something. You can call the White House at 202-456-1111 or email comments@whitehouse.gov. Depending on who you find more persuasive, you can demand that Bush publicly identify the Dalai Lama as the newest member of The Axis of Evil, or you can demand that he demonstrate that China doesn’t actually have our economic balls in a vice by denouncing the Chinese crackdown in Lhasa. (Maybe Laura can lend a hand again, like she did when Burma was cracking down on protesting Buddhist monks?)

Meanwhile, I really look forward to Dana Perino explaining — if that’s the word I want — how the crackdown in Lhasa is meaningfully different from the crackdown in Burma five months ago. Ten will get you twenty that she doesn’t say: “The main difference is that China has almost total control of the news coming out of Lhasa, so that the world has very little first-hand information. We, of course, do have our own sources of information, and we can confirm that it is every bit as bad as Burma, if not worse. Oh, and the other difference is that this time we’re too busy with other things, so we’re just maintaining a tactful silence instead of calling for restraint, and a peaceful resolution, or anything like that.”

And here’s what you can look forward to next week from the Chinese truth-meisters: How the Dalai Lama is not only Client #8, but he regularly had the Emperors Club send prostitutes all the way to Dharamsala for a threesome with his driver.