Loopy Comparisons of America to Oppressive China

August 15th, 2005 5:55 AM

Byron York amazed folks this weekend with a Bush hater's comparison of Cindy Sheehan's "peace vigil" with the quashed Chinese democracy protests at Tiananmen Square. It makes me feel old to remember that back when the Tiananmen Square massacre happened in June 1989, liberal media people made bizarre American connections:

"Thousands may have been gunned down in Beijing, but what about the millions of American kids whose lives are being ruined by an enormous failure of the country's educational system...We can and we should agonize about the dead students in Beijing, but we've got a much bigger problem here at home." -- Former NBC anchorman John Chancellor's commentary on NBC Nightly News, June 20.

"Four persons were executed yesterday, three in Shanghai and one in Parchman, Miss. World opinion has shouted its outrage at the barbarism of the Chinese government crackdown. But in America, capital punishment is on the rise." -- Boston Globe columnist Robert Turner, June 23.

"Stealing TV pictures off satellites may be the most sophisticated manipulation of the press so far, and the most insidious, but the impulse is nothing new, nor is it restricted to totalitarian states. In the anti-war days of the sixties, FBI agents often posed as reporters, taking pictures, using TV footage in court. The U.S. government prevented press coverage of the invasion of Grenada." -- Reporter Susan Spencer on the CBS Evening News, June 17.

"Will the military leaders there be embarrassed by this, will this be something like Kent State was for our military?"-- CBS reporter Eric Engberg on Nightwatch, June 7.