During talks on human rights, Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner actually apologized to his Chinese counterparts for the Arizona anti illegal immigration law, among other things. Eyebrows are already being raised by the spectacle. According to the AP:
"Posner said in addition to talks on freedom of religion and expression, labor rights and rule of law, officials also discussed Chinese complaints about problems with U.S. human rights, which have included crime, poverty, homelessness and racial discrimination.
"He said U.S. officials did not whitewash the American record and in fact raised on its own a new immigration law in Arizona that requires police to ask about a person's immigration status if there is suspicion the person is in the country illegally."
Sometimes words nearly fail when confronted by a story like this. China is ruled by a fascist, totalitarian government that, since Mao established the Communist regime in 1949, has slaughtered 100 million of its own people.
Presently China regularly violates the human rights of its own citizens, especially ethnic and religious minorities. China censors the media, including the Internet. China even requires internal passports for its own citizens to travel from one part of the country to another. Finally, China has embarked on a drive for military power and eventual super power supremacy, threatening its neighbors.
Let us not forget the massacre at Tiananmen Square where, 21 years ago, the Chinese regime sent in tanks and troops with bayonets to slaughter a group of peaceful, student protestors.
The reaction by Hot Air's Ed Morrissey was typical:
"It doesn't make the Obama administration sound 'mature' to call Arizona racist for tasking its law enforcement agencies with enforcing the law. It makes them look illiterate, closed-minded, and weak. Maybe Posner should focus on China's long record of oppression, slave labor, political executions, and heavy-handed censorship — and join Arizona in demanding that the federal government start enforcing the laws that have existed for decades on immigration."
Stipulating that the US State Department has had its share of craven people like Michael Posner since probably Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State, kowtowing to the Chinese about the Arizona anti illegal immigration law pushes the envelope of cringing, craven behavior. It would be as if someone had apologized to Adolf Hitler in the 1930s for segregation in the South. The only difference is that segregation in the South really was a blot on American civilization, whereas the Arizona law is a mild attempt to enforce immigration statutes that the federal government seems unwilling to do.
Michael Posner should resign immediately, of course, and apologize to the American people for besmirching American honor to tyrants. He is not likely to do so. Sadly Posner has not gone rogue, but rather is carrying out Obama administration policy to grovel before the world for sins real and imagined. The work of repairing the damage will be one of years.
