Ljs: The Right Word: Seeing red over China

Limbaugh, Ingraham and Savage unite in their disgust at President Obama's conduct of diplomacy with Hu Jintao

Conservative radio hosts were not happy about the red carpet treatment afforded to China's premier, Hu Jintao, on his state visit.

Rush Limbaugh

Limbaugh was particularly concerned that we don't appear to be spending too lavishly on the state visit, as we are already so indebted to China (listen to clip and read transcript).

"This dinner tonight better not be too opulent. They better not go too overboard on this because Hu Jintao's paying for this. And if the regime goes overboard here with all kinds of opulence and expense, you know, Hu Jintao's gonna say, 'This is not why we gave you the money. I can get this at home.'"

Limbaugh's concerns were somewhat valid considering that China has more than doubled its holding of US treasury debt to almost $900bn since their last state visit in 2006. Still, it seems like a good idea to make Mr Hu feel welcome if we want to improve our relations with the world's fastest-growing economy. Much of the focus of the visit, however, has been on China's human right's abuses and Limbaugh doesn't think much of Premier Hu's stance on this issue.

You have to learn how to listen to the "ChiComs". When you hear Hu Jintao talk about "mutual respect", what that means is ? It does not mean, "We will bury you. We will conquer you." I'm sure they already think that. "Mutual respect" means, "Shut the hell up about our human rights abuses! Don't talk to me about the Falun Gong. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear about Tibet. Don't even bring up the Dalai Lama. We liked the fact you made him go out the back door next to the trash."

It's interesting that Limbaugh, who famously dismissed the abuses at Abu Ghraib as fraternity boys merely letting off steam, is suddenly concerned about human rights. But he was not impressed by Hu Jintao's tepid response to a reporter's question on this issue that China had much work to do in this area but it was their business how they moved forward.

He told us to go to hell. He told the media to go to hell. He told Obama to go to hell. "We have a different version of human rights than you do. What are you gonna do about it? You got your own problems."

We do, indeed, have our own problems, aside from the myriad of human rights abuses going on at Guant�namo Bay and in CIA secret prisons, even on US soil, American prisoners are subjected to extraordinarily harsh conditions, with around 80,000 in solitary confinement, sometimes denied sunlight and exercise, and the ACLU have reported incidents of prisoners being held in 3ftx3ft metal cages with "no bed, blanket or toilet". Though this probably has nothing to do with Hu Jintao's unwillingness to be drawn on the human rights issue. Anyway, Limbaugh imagines the behind-the-scenes conversations between President Obama and Premier Hu are of a different nature.

In private, Hu Jintao is gonna say to Obama, "Come on, now! What's more important, human rights or cheap iPhones and iPads?" The ChiComs, they're not gonna ?. I mean, they'll go through the motions of letting us preach to them, but in private?

No doubt, Liu Xiaobo and other Chinese dissidents would be much better-off if Limbaugh were conducting US diplomacy with the "ChiComs".

Laura Ingraham

Laura Ingraham shared Limbaugh's pessimism about China's human rights record and the prospect of improved US-China relations (listen to clip).

"Who's violating everyone's civil rights? Who's torturing dissidents? Who's undervaluing his currency? Who's manipulating the markets? Who's giving his state-owned corporations huge subsidies to further subvert the United States' economic position in the world? Who's doing all that? Hu is."

She wasn't happy, however, that there appeared to be more controversy about the failure of three of the four top dogs in Congress, John Boehner, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to attend the state dinner honouring Premier Hu, than the fact of the dinner itself.

Are you following me here, people? It's not controversial that we have a state dinner for one of the biggest enemies of freedom out there. It is controversial that the speaker of the house doesn't go 99 degrees for him ? you know, bowing.

Ingraham appears to find it unseemly for a US president to be bowing to other world leaders.

Is he still saying he lost a contact that first time he bowed to the Saudi King?

Back to the controversy at hand, she didn't have much to say about Harry Reid or Mitch McConnell, but she wasn't happy about the apparent slight by outgoing press secretary Robert Gibbs against Boehner's decision to skip dinner.

So, here's what's controversial: John Boehner, and the Gibbopotamaus [Robert Gibbs, presumably] yesterday in one of his parting shots from the Gibbopotamous pool ? he decided to chime in again on the great assault against decency. Not what the Chinese do to its people, but to what John Boehner did to the Chinese.

Actually, Gibbs didn't say a whole lot other than that "we hope that ? because of the importance of the relationship ? that they would attend." Either way, Ingraham viewed Boehner's stand against the Chinese leader as testimony to his strong leadership qualities.

Boehner is up, up, up. Guess what all these people who say, "oh, he's a blubber puss, oh, he's crying too much." I mean, I was kind of ribbing him for that as well, right. John Boehner's popularity is up because he's taken a firm stand. He said he's going to go forward and do the people's business. They spent their days you know in reflection after the Gabby Giffords shooting, but he said, "Look, this business is going to go on," and people love that.

Though, perhaps, attempting to engage with the leader of the world's fastest-growing economy might have moved the "people's business" a bit further along.

Michael Savage

Michael Savage was also unimpressed by the administration's kowtowing to regime that is "mocking" us (listen to clip).

"Well, the president of China is here. He's basically mocking the United States. He's used his junk yard dog Kim Jong-il to threaten us. That's the fellow from North Korea for those of you who don't know who he is. He [Hu] unveiled a stealth fighter plane just as our secretary of defence was visiting. He attacked our own currency yesterday by saying a dollar-based system is a thing of the past. Yet, here he comes to the US yesterday and Obama genuflects to him."

Savage stopped short of looking to military solutions to deal with the Chinese threat, however.

You know, you certainly don't want to start a war with China over trade, but they've started a war with us. They're trading us into the poor house.

It is the favourable conditions that enable China's huge trade surplus that particularly bothered him.

Any lawyers in the house? How come you can't ply your tort trade in China? Because you'd wind up in a concentration camp if you did. If you crippled any of the businesses in China with false tort claims, with product liability claims, with workers compensation claims that are false, with EPA regulations with EEOC regs, you would not last too long in China.

In fact, in the past year in particular, China has made big strides in the area of tort laws and made moves to improve workers' rights, but as Savage was unaware of this, he suggested the following solution.

Now, I would say that we could straighten out America's economic problems rapidly. Donald Trump actually agreed with me on one principal method, which is establish a 20% tariff immediately on all Chinese goods! Overnight, bingo: 20%!

Well, it's an approach that many people might be happy to try ? though they might not be so happy if China stopped buying up our debt. But you know, you certainly don't want to start a war with China over trade.

? Read more from Sadhbh Walshe's The Right Word series