Arrested Development

Attytood:
Woman arrested for speaking freely right after Bush call for “freedom…to speak freely” — and CNN calls it “a blemish” on Hu visit

Woman arrested for speaking freely right after Bush call for “freedom…to speak freely” — and CNN calls it “a blemish” on Hu visit

Usually watching CNN with one eye as we blog from our undisclosed location doesn’t give us much new fodder, except for the occasional “stuck landing gear” crisis. But today we are aghast at the coverage of Chinese President Hu Jintao at the White House.

At an outdoor ceremony, Bush told Hu:

China has become successful because the Chinese people are experience the freedom to buy, and to sell, and to produce — and China can grow even more successful by allowing the Chinese people the freedom to assemble, to speak freely, and to worship.

Seconds later, one of the people assembled on the White House south lawn actually tried to speak freely right here in America — about both the lack of free speech and religious freedom in China.

That free-speaking woman was promptly hauled off and arrested:

She shouted in heavily accented English, “President Bush: Stop him from killing” and, “President Bush, stop him from persecuting the Falun Gong.”

Bush, standing next to Hu, leaned over and whispered a comment to the Chinese leader, who paused briefly when the shouting began and then resumed his remarks.

The protester was waving a banner with the red and yellow colors used by Falun Gong, a banned religious movement in China. She kept shouting for several minutes before Secret Service uniformed agents were able to make their way to her position at the top of the camera stand. They dragged her off the stand.

A photographer who was standing next to the protester tried momentarily to quiet her by putting his hand in front of her mouth.

Watching the scene unfold, we felt like we were living on a different planet from the folks at CNN. Any enemy of free speech is an enemy of ours, and we have long loathed the totalitarian regime in Beijing. Like millions of other, we still see the picture of the lone man standing up to a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square as the iconic picture of our times.

Why do we get the impression that President Bush, his Secret Service — and CNN — were rooting for the tanks.