First Lady Laura Bush has used her final year in the White House to try to influence two of the most doggedly difficult human rights and foreign policy issues to face the Bush administration and its recent predecessors.
She has made a personal crusade of trying to free political opposition leader and human rights campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in Myanmar, and -- on a broader front -- she has tried to bring democracy in general to the country also known as Burma.
And today, she brought a very public spotlight to the Ladies in White, the group of spouses and other relatives of jailed dissidents seeking to bring respect for human rights to Cuba -- as they worked to do in the 2007 protest march pictured above.
Just as her work on behalf of Burmese dissidents has had an "in-your-face" quality, so, too, has her direct challenge to the Castro regime in Cuba.
With Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, who was born in Havana, she spoke with members of the group by digital video conference.
In a written statement issued after the long-distance meeting, she said:
These women show a courage and determination that is deeply moving, and their stories are an important reminder that dictatorship cannot crush the spirit of freedom.
The United States will continue to shine a light on the abuses of the Castro regime, which has imprisoned the husbands, sons and brothers of the Ladies in White, as well as other Cubans who attempt to exercise their fundamental human rights. The United States supports the efforts of the Ladies in White and other independent civil society activists to free all political prisoners and restore human rights in Cuba.
If the video conference and a statement by the first lady suggest to Cuban Americans in Miami and elsewhere a continued White House effort on behalf of Castro's opponents, well, what Republican campaigner would complain?
-- James Gerstenzang
Photos: Above: Ladies in White in a 2007 protest. Credit: Gregory Bull / Associated Press.
Below: First Lady Laura Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez in video conference with members of the group. Credit: Joyce N. Boghosian / The White House.
The wives or husbands of dozens of U.S. government officials and diplomats attending the dinner, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi, were identified as a 'spouse.'
But the list identified Poe as the 'guest' of Mary Cheney, just as it identified all other attendees who were accompanied by friends rather than married spouses.
Now that Connecticut has joined Massachusetts and California in legalizing same-sex marriage, the question of how married or partnered gay couples should be described in formal affairs such as White House dinners is likely to resurface.
It's a difficult question for the White House.
As Countdown to Crawford noted last week when the Connecticut decision came down, "for more than four years, the Bush White House has run against any changes in the law that would allow gay Americans -- even his vice president's daughter -- to marry."
Speaking of the speaker, who was seated next to Berlusconi, the Columbus Day dinner proved that politics makes for interesting dinner companions.
Only hours earlier, Pelosi had set the Democrats on an economic path diverging from that favored by the White House. She called for a new stimulus package to the tune of $150 billion, setting up a likely end-of-term clash with Bush and congressional Republicans.
But the dinner itself suggested international accord: Maine lobster fondue, artichoke and reggiano cheese ravioli, lamb with crispy eggplant and Swiss chard, chocolate napoleons and Russian River cuvee.
The entertainment? The cast of "Jersey Boys."
Frankie Valli of the Four Seasons -- the real Jersey Boys from Newark (which, as anyone from Newark knows, is pronounced Nerk)-- yucked it up with the president afterward on stage.
-- James Gerstenzang
Top photo: Heather Poe and Mary Cheney. Credit: Damon Winter / Los Angeles Times.
Bottom photo: Nancy Pelosi and Silvio Berlusconi. Credit: Aude Guerrucci / EPA / Pool
For eight years, Stephen J. Hadley has observed President Bush up close.
As the president's national security advisor throughout the second term, and on many occasions before that as the deputy national security advisor, Hadley has traveled the world with the president, has cleared brush with him in Crawford, and briefed him daily on developments around the world.
He was there for discussions leading up to the surge in Iraq. Afghanistan? 9/11? North Korea? Iran? Hugo Chavez? Human rights and the Beijing Olympics? Russia? Georgia? All were in his portfolio.
If the word "crisis" was attached to it -- save, perhaps, for the stock market and Katrina -- it is only a slight exaggeration to say there's a good chance the debate went through Hadley's office at the northwest corner of the White House West Wing.
The vantage point for tracking the president could hardly be better.
Bush, Hadley said today, is "remarkably unaffected by eight years as president in terms of who he is, what he stands for, what he thinks of himself."
He spoke with a small group of reporters in the Roosevelt Room, across a small corridor from the Oval Office.
He was responding to a question about whether in its second term the administration had adopted a more pragmatic and less ideological approach to both foreign policy and economic matters, compared with the first term.
"Situations change," Hadley said, referring specifically to the Middle East, which he said was "a very different place" these days compared with 2001. Therefore, he said, the way the administration approaches it has naturally undergone change.
Of course no presidential aide wants to say the boss has eased back on his core principles. Nor would one want to say that the boss had not grown and adapted over eight years.
Hadley put it this way: "We've tried to be flexible. We've tried to learn."
-- James Gerstenzang
Photo: Stephen J. Hadley, left rear next to Vice President Dick Cheney, in the White House Roosevelt Room, 2006. Credit: Eric Draper / The White House
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.
The father-and-son team of former President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush dedicated the new U.S. Embassy in Beijing on Friday morning — and even that ribbon-cutting event did not entirely avoid the controversy that has marked the president's visit to the Olympics.
It was the current president's first formal event since arriving in China on Thursday evening, and he slipped in an oh-so-gently-worded reminder of the differences between the United States and his hosts over human rights, even as he suggested that they agree on the sensitive subject.
The question of human rights — and whether by attending the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games on Friday evening he was giving Beijing a pass — has dogged the president's trip to Asia since it began Tuesday.
He has defended his decision to attend the Games — in which the Chinese government has put huge political stock — as one built on his support for the American athletes. International politics and athletic competition can be kept apart, he has said.
And, as C2C noted a little while ago, he scheduled the dedication with a nod to Chinese tradition, which considers eight the luckiest number: It began at 8:08 a.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month of the year '08.
But nonetheless, on what is U.S. diplomatic turf in the heart of the Chinese capital, the president used the dedication of the embassy ...
From afar, in Bangkok, President Bush made clear his disagreement with Chinese authorities over their handling of human rights issues. He delivered a blunt criticism today of Chinese policies.
But when it comes to being a guest in China, the president is stepping gently.
Remember, now: "Eight is the luckiest number that the Chinese have in their tradition," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino advised reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush flew to Beijing from Thailand for a visit built around the opening of the Summer Olympic Games.
White House officials clearly took that tradition into account when they scheduled the dedication of the new U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
So, with the president, his father (the first President Bush and the first American to lead a U.S. liaison office in China in pre-embassy days), former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger (who arranged the first presidential visit to China, by Richard M. Nixon in 1972), and the Gatlin Brothers (to sing the National Anthem) in attendance, the embassy will be dedicated on Friday. That is, the eighth day of the eighth month, in the year '08.
And at what minute will that occur? Do we really have to tell you?
At 8:08 a.m., of course.
This would be the proper time, then, to ask: Is there in the Bush family an undiscovered tendency to live by Asian tradition? Or, is the president and staff going out of their way to pay respect to Chinese custom, after, coincidentally, drawing Beijing's rebuke for his tough human rights remarks?
With President Bush seeking to demonstrate he is not papering over differences with China as he makes his way through Asia, the Chinese decision to keep speed skating champion Joey Cheek out of the country does not make the president's mission any easier.
Cheek, a 2006 Olympic gold medalist, is a co-founder of Team Darfur, an organization of athletes seeking to draw attention to human rights violations in the war-torn African region -- where China is a major purchaser of oil., the Washington Post reported.
He said his visa to visit China was revoked on Tuesday -- effectively prohibiting him from visiting, and presumably drawing attention to China's role in Darfur, during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games beginning Friday.
Bush is on his way to China to attend the opening ceremony and some of the initial competitions.
Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One today as Bush flew to Thailand, his final stop before reaching Beijing, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said:
We were disturbed to learn that the Chinese had refused his visa. We are taking the matter very seriously. We have sent in our embassy in Beijing to démarche the Chinese. That is where we go in and we say we are concerned about this, and we want you to reconsider your actions. So we would hope that they would change their mind.
On his final scheduled trip to Asia as president, George W. Bush is delivering what may be his toughest message to China on human rights — but from afar.
In remarks prepared for delivery Thursday in Bangkok, Thailand, where Bush and his wife and daughter Barbara arrived today, Bush says that the United States and China have made progress across a wide swath of the relationship, particularly in trade.
This “constructive relationship,” he says on his final stop before visiting Beijing to attend the opening days of the Summer Olympic Games beginning Friday, “has placed America in a better position to be honest and direct on other issues.” He singles out religious freedom and human rights.
And, in a key passage, he says:
The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings. So America stands in firm opposition to China’s detention of political dissidents, 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. And we press for openness and justice not to impose our beliefs, but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs.
The remarks go to the heart of issues human rights campaigners from China and elsewhere have raised with Bush — most recently at a private meeting with him at the White House last week ahead of the trip.
The question that remains, however, is this: Will the symbolism of his taking part in the Olympic festivities, including attending the opening ceremony in which Chinese President Hu Jintao and other Chinese officials have put so much stock, outweigh his words?
After all, government-controlled news media will be able to block wide Chinese access to Bush’s critical message, while touting his words of praise and displaying images of him at the Olympic stadium in Beijing.
For Bush, there was little question about attending the games once he gave his word to Hu last September that he would show up. He has made clear that backing out of the trip or delivering a blunt public message of rebuke on human rights would be deeply insulting to the Chinese and, in his view, would set back the U.S.-Chinese relationship he has sought to construct.
So, the issue that hung over the visit was how to balance the public image without appearing to undercut the political message he wanted to convey.
The speech in Bangkok provides the answer.
In the end, Bush says, “Only China can decide what course it will follow.”
“America and our partners are realistic, and we are prepared for any possibility,” he says.
But, closing on an upbeat note, he adds:
I am optimistic about China’s future. Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas, especially on an unrestricted Internet. Change in China will arrive on its own terms and in keeping with its own history and traditions. Yet change will arrive. And it will be clear for all to see that those who aspire to speak their conscience and worship their God are no threat to the future of China. They are the people who will make China a great nation in the 21st century.
The White House press office took the unusual step of distributing the prepared text well ahead of delivery -- a move that Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters was made to make it more convenient for them. With the time difference between Asia and the United States, the speech will be delivered on deadline for U.S. newspapers.
But the distribution of the text also assures wider dissemination. And that's what the White House wanted.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
