Opinion: Why Clinton calls on Bush to boycott Olympic opening and why he won’t

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It’s Monday, just two weeks out from the crucial Pennsylvania primary. Everybody in politics is talking about you firing your chief strategist over the weekend and turmoil in your operation that’s also lagging in fundraising, attracting half the funds of your opponent while he outspends you up to five-to-one.

So what’s a woman to do, other than go on ‘Ellen’?

You need to change the subject -- and quickly.

How about, demand that somebody else who nobody likes anyway do something he won’t do but it’ll grab some publicity and you’ll look good saying he should and it won’t cost you anything?

So today Sen. Hillary Clinton called on President Bush to boycott the opening of the Olympic games this summer in Beijing over the issue of, naturally, human rights. You know, Darfur, Tibet, that kind of thing that China has proven oblivious to. That’ll get at least your left and maybe the media talking about something else.

‘These events underscore why I believe the Bush administration has been wrong to downplay human rights in its policy towards China,’ Clinton said.

So what if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has....

said essentially the same thing. She’s not running for president. And neither is Germany’s Angela Merkel, who’s gonna skip the opening ceremonies.

That big show is on TV anyway.

‘Americans will stand strong in support of freedom of religious and political expression and human rights,’ Clinton said safely.

But wait, you don’t want to alienate all the athletes, who’ve been working literally years toward this international competition, and their families and fans the way Democratic President Jimmy Carter did by boycotting the entire Olympics in Moscow in 1980 over Afghanistan.

So Clinton added: ‘Americans will also stand strong and root for the success of American athletes who have worked hard and earned the right to compete in the Olympic Games of 2008.’

Bush’s diplomatic style has always been to exert pressure quietly behind the scenes on other countries, especially those don’t like to lose face in the international community. Let the others do the grandstanding, while he arranges things out of sight. Trouble is, you don’t get much publicity that way, unless you leak it.

George W. had that behind-the-scenes tendency reinforced during the time he lived in China for a spell with his father, George H.W., who was, many forget, at one time before his V.P. and White House years the official U.S. representative resident in Beijing and came to believe the Chinese appreciate discreet diplomacy that’s not made for TV.

So a few years later when he was running for governor of Texas against the popular Democratic incumbent Ann Richards, George W. Bush showed up unexpectedly one Saturday morning at the home of the state’s influential and powerful Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock, also a Democrat and a public supporter of Richards.

The wannabe rookie Bush told the veteran of Texas politics candidly that he felt he was going to win the governor’s race and, when he did, he looked forward to working with the speaker. Bullock was cautious with this brazen fellow.

But they had a nice chat at the kitchen table. Bush left. And the speaker waited for the inevitable leaked story in the newspapers about what he figured was a political publicity stunt by this newcomer Republican.

But the leaked story didn’t come. And didn’t come. And Bullock came to think maybe Bush would win and would work with him. And he did and they did.

So much so, that when the lifelong Democrat Bullock was later dying of cancer, he quietly arranged for the Republican to give his eulogy.

Which he did.

--Andrew Malcolm