Bush in Beijing no ambassador for American values, say Libertarians
In his telling, President Bush spent much of his time while in Beijing talking to world leaders China and Russia about their flawed human rights records. Even before heading to Beijing for the Olympics, he said:
America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents and human rights advocates and religious activists. We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly, and labor rights, not to antagonize China's leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential. We press for openness and justice, not to impose our beliefs, but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs. As Chinese scientist Xu Liangying has said: "Human nature is universal and needs to pursue freedom and equality."
Not so fast, Mr. President. The Libertarian Party, which bills itself as "the party of principle -- smaller government, lower taxes, more freedom," this morning called Bush "an unfit ambassador of American values."
Andrew Davis, the group's spokesman, said he was watching the Olympics when it occurred to him what an irony it was that Bush was pushing China and Russia to improve their flawed human rights records while Bush himself had curbed individual constitutional rights in the face of the 9/11 terror attacks.
"I saw Bush in the crowd and thought what a terrific opportunity this could have been were it not for, you know, the past seven years of his administration," Davis, a 23-year-old Clemson graduate, said in an interview.
In his news release, Davis said Bush's seven years in office had "produced policies more reflective of those of communist China than a nation based upon the principles of individual freedom and free market economics."
His list of civil liberty wrongs: the Patriot Act. Firing U.S. attorneys. No trials for detainees at Guantanamo. Spying on American citizens.
And that's just on the civil liberties front. On the economy, Davis said, there are fiscal irresponsibility in spending and a more "heavy-handed" approach to economics. What it adds up to, in the LP view, is "crossing the line" between the state and the marketplace.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: Eric Draper / White House
