China

Wall Street Journal reporter Mei Fong wrote a report Fridayabout how some families in China, perhaps with the help of criminals, are marrying off their daughters with no intent of having them honor their vows in order to keep the "bride price," an amount a groom's family typically pays the bride's family.

This development is just one of many perverse side-effects of resulting from the Chinese Communist government's one-child policy (image at top right was found at this web address), which has now been in place for three decades. Because of that policy and the country's male-preferring culture, far more pre-born girls than boys have been aborted, leading to a serious male-female imbalance.

Despite the history, Fong somehow managed to get through her 26-paragraph report without mentioning the terms "abortion" or "one-child."

Here are the relevant paragraphs, with euphemistic words in bold after the title:

Ted Turner's picture really should appear in the dictionary for the entry "useful idiot."

The CNN founder -- who has previously called North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-il "sincere" and "non-threatening" -- today told NPR's Diane Rehm that the Chinese government's one-child policy has been mostly successful, without being "draconian" (as reported by TheRightScoop):

This is a quote from Ted that goes virtually unchallenged from Diane:

“We do have the example of China, and they’ve done it without, uh, draconian, as far as I can see, draconian steps.”

It's has been in the news a lot lately, and the prospects of a global currency have Max Keiser, Huffington Post blogger and host of BBC World's "The Oracle," giving dire warnings of the consequences if China or other countries were to make a push for it.

Keiser appeared on Al-Jazeera English's March 27 "Inside Story" to discuss the possibilities of a global currency. Host Darren Jordon asked Keiser about the pitfalls of converting to a global currency and Keiser used it as an opportunity to launch into an anti-American diatribe.

"Well, the pitfalls are for the U.S.," Keiser said. "The U.S. has what [former French President Charles] de Gaulle called an extraordinary privilege - they can write checks that they never have to cash. They just print new dollars. This has been going on since Bretton Woods at the end of World War II."

Remember that juicy story last week of the Chinese mistress that convinced her rivals and her lover to go for a drive? The mistress that then drove them all off a cliff in revenge for being dumped for one of the rivals by the lover?

Great story. It had pathos, humor, revenge and... apparently it never happened. The U.S. media picked this story up from the Chinese speaking media and ran with it last week but obviously didn't do much by way of checking the accuracy of the tale. Turns out the Chinese "reporter" that wrote the story pulled a Jayson Blair -- he made up the whole thing.

Chinese divers won a record seven gold medals during the 2008 Olympics.  But even they didn't leap as headlong into the Beijing tank as did NBC.  That's how you might describe the collective verdict of the Fox News Watch panel this evening on NBC's regime-friendly coverage.  The subject arose as part of the show's Year in Review, and began with a clip of Matt Lauer unctuously questioning a ChiCom official:

MATT LAUER: There's a recent poll that said some very high percentage of the people in China are happy with their lot in life. Something around 80%.  You compare that with the polls in the United States that say only about 25% of Americans are.  What's the root of their happiness here?

View video here. The panel lit into the network's coverage, with even the liberal-leaning Jane Hall and Kirsten Powers joining the NBC-scorching consensus.

During a phone interview with FNC anchor Megyn Kelly, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who already voiced disapproval of Barack Obama's attempt to suggest that Kissinger would agree with his intention to meet personally with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, on Saturday elaborated on his disagreement with Obama, and clarified his views on how America should negotiate with Iran. The segment began with a soundbite of Obama from the debate trying to lecture McCain about Kissinger’s views. Obama: "Senator McCain mentioned Henry Kissinger, who’s one of his advisors, who, along with five recent Secretaries of State, just said that we should meet with Iran, guess what, ‘without precondition.’ This is one of your own advisors."

Asked by Kelly if he supported having a President "meet with Ahmadinejad without preconditions," Kissinger responded: "No, I don’t. I have argued that, at some point, negotiations with Iran are important. But it is my view that they should be on the working level, and that the President should not be involved until we know that we are close to an agreement, or that we know what the nature of the agreement is." Kelly soon sought clarification: "So, in other words, you favor negotiations at the lower level, perhaps all the way up to the Secretary of State, but you do not believe an American President should sit down without preconditions, as Barack Obama says he would like to do." Kissinger: "That is correct."

Peripatetic New York Times columnist Tom Friedman was in China for the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, and his Wednesday column "A Biblical Seven Years" praised the host country for the Games' "magnificent $43 billion infrastructure," built over the past seven years while the U.S. has been stuck fighting Al Qaeda. Friedman also praised the Communist nation's "planning, concentrated state power" and "national mobilization." Don't those words have more than a little echo of Stalinism?

After attending the spectacular closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics and feeling the vibrations from hundreds of Chinese drummers pulsating in my own chest, I was tempted to conclude two things: “Holy mackerel, the energy coming out of this country is unrivaled.” And, two: “We are so cooked. Start teaching your kids Mandarin.”

Do as we say, not as we do - the new theme for NBC's coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics? Quite possibly. 

WTHR, the NBC affiliate for Indianapolis, reported from Beijing and described the set used for the network's two highest-rated news broadcasts - "Nightly News" and "Today" - as air conditioned, even though it is outdoors.

"The set is outside, but air conditioning vents make the weather bearable," Anne Marie Tiernon wrote for WTHR Eyewitness News on August 14.

Even NBC "Today" co-host Matt Lauer remarked about the air conditioning, but complained the weather was still uncomfortable even with the luxury.

"The first couple of nights even with the air conditioning it was steamy in here, but we've been lucky ever since," Lauer said to WTHR. "It's been overcast some days, takes the temperature down. We call it fog smog."

While the Washington Post's Beijing-based Ariana Eunjung Cha should be commended for her reporting on Beijing's restrictions on the exercise of religion by Olympic team chaplains, the paper's headline editors clearly dropped the ball in titling her August 14 headline: "Some Olympians Dissatisfied With Religious Center."

The casual reader might say, "so what," and breeze past the article. After all, any Olympic Games is bound to garner a host of logistics and aesthetics complaints from athletes, coaches, media, and tourists on a whole host of things. But the substance of the story is not so much on the subjective and sometimes picayune complaints of athletes and coaches but rather in the tightly-restricted manner in which the Communist Chinese government is providing for the spirital welfare of the Olympians.

For example, Cha reported that (emphasis mine):

On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen introduced a segment on China hosting the Olympics: "Well, the Olympic games are more than a chance for the world's athletes to excel, they also give the host nation an opportunity to shine. For China and it's 1.3 billion people, the Beijing games are feeding a groundswell of pride." Chen then went to correspondent Barry Petersen who declared: "From designer clothes to new cars, China is getting rich. Democracies once bragged that theirs was the only way to economic success. China is doing it the communist way."

Petersen began his report by observing: "Well, China wants to throw a successful Olympics party and so far they're doing just fine. With plenty of enthusiasm spreading from Beijing pretty much around the world." Of course that ignored the heavy pollution in Beijing, constant protests, President Bush’s criticism of China’s human rights record, and the fatal stabbing of the father-in-law of a U.S. coach. Petersen went on to describe how: "Beijing has the welcome banners out to a half million visitors. More foreigners at one time than the country has seen since the Mongol invasion a thousand years ago." So Olympic visitors are like barbarian hordes?

Saturday's Fox News Watch devoted a few minutes to the controversy, which was documented previously by the MRC's Geoffrey Dickens, over NBC's Matt Lauer claiming during an interview for the Today show that "some very high percentage of the people in China are happy with their lot in life, something around 80 percent," but that in America, "only about 25 percent." Liberal panelist Patricia Murphy of Citizen Jane stated her belief that Lauer simply made an "error" in misstating a Pew Research poll which found that, when asked if they were "satisfied with the direction of the country," 86 percent of Chinese respondents said yes, but when asked about "personal satisfaction," that "the number was much, much lower."

Conservative columnist Jim Pinkerton theorized NBC was being soft on China because the network is making money off the Olympics: "Could it be because NBC paid China a billion dollars to cover the Olympics? And they can't afford to have their reporters and sportscasters kicked out for telling the truth about China. So they have no choice but to cover up." (Transcript follows)

Maybe it is because NBC has the broadcast rights for the Summer Olympics being held in China, but big gas-guzzling, greenhouse gas-emitting automobiles made by General Motors are seen as a plus for the communist nation's embrace of capitalism.

The August 6 "NBC Nightly News" featured the Chinese people's love of troubled U.S. automaker General Motors (NYSE:GM) - an indicator interpreted as an acceptance of capitalism.

"What would Chairman Mao think?" CNBC correspondent Phil LeBeau asked. "Six decades after the Communist Revolution, China has become the hottest capitalist engine on earth. And ironically, some of the most revered symbols of success in today's China are Cadillac, Buick and Chevrolet."

Could the NBC honchos be a tad touchy about criticism of the Beijing Olympics—especially when it comes from its own talent pool?  Was there a kernel of truth in Mika Brzezinski's light-hearted warning that MSNBC's Morning Joe crew would "get a call" if it persisted in its mocking of the games for whose broadcast rights the Peacock Network has over the years paid billions?

When the subject of the Olympics arose during the opening segment of today's show, the panel went into an extended coughing fit, coupled with cracks about tanks in Tiananmen Square.  Mika joined in the joshing for a while, before finally putting her foot down . . .

View video here.

Mika touched things off with a news item about the Olympic torch.

Update at bottom of post.

In a pre-taped segment, delivered from the Forbidden City in Beijing, NBC's Matt Lauer pointed out a poll that showed the Chinese are happier than Americans and repeated his line that protestors could be seen as "party crashers," on Tuesday's "Today" show.

During an interview with NBC News China analyst, Joshua Cooper Ramo, Lauer made the following observation:

LAUER: There's a recent poll that said some very high percentage of the people in China are happy with their lot in life. Something around 80 percent. You compare that to polls in the United States that say only about 25 percent of Americans are, what's the root of their happiness here?

Then a little later in the segment the "Today" co-host, repeating an earlier worry he made on Monday's program, declared the average Chinese citizen would disapprove of any protests:

NBC’s Matt Lauer, broadcasting live from the Great Wall of China on Monday’s "Today" show, referred to the "double-edged sword" of the world’s attention being on China for the Summer Olympic Games and asked a Chinese professor about how that "spotlight" might be "co-opted by party crashers who have a bone to pick with this country. He then asked the professor, "How worried are the people here about that?" [audio available here]

Lauer, who will be in China during the next weeks for the Olympics, interviewed Professor Teng Dimeng of the Beijing Foreign Studies University 20 minutes into 7 am Eastern hour of the NBC program. According to the University’s own website, it is a "key university under the [Chinese] Ministry of Education" and that "since her initiation, the [Communist] Party Central Committee and the late Chinese leaders, including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, has provided great care and teachings for the development of the university." Therefore, Lauer, despite introducing Teng as a professor, was actually speaking to an employee of the Communist Chinese government.

Whoops.  On the very day that the New York Times takes President Bush harshly to task for failing to promote human rights in China, the president meets at the White House . . . . with five Chinese human rights activists.

Railed the Times in this morning's editorial, Past Time for Speaking Out:

Two weeks before he goes to the Beijing Olympic Games, President Bush remains unacceptably silent about China’s crackdown on basic human rights.

[H]is refusal to speak out publicly and clearly about China’s repressive behavior is an abdication of leadership and a blot on his record.

But just hours later, the president was hosting the group of Chinese activists, in a meeting that had been planned in advance.  The White House press secretary put out this statement on the meeting:

Free market capitalism is a much-despised bogeyman to the mainstream media, as our friends at MRC's Business & Media Institute can attest.

So it's somewhat refreshing to find one article in a major media publication -- okay, it's actually Newsweek -- that seems to lament the entrepreneur-choking nature of government regulation.

Of course, the regulatory state in question happens to be the highly undemocratic Communist China, but in the July 28 edition article, "Taking Away Olympic Fun," Mary Hennock and Manuela Zoninsein lament that "Visitors to the Games will find the newly spruced-up Beijing cleaner -- and blander.":

With world leaders meeting in Japan for the G8 Summit, conventional wisdom would suggest high commodity prices - which are having a detrimental effect on world economy - would be the focus.

But that wasn't so on the July 6 broadcast of "NBC Nightly News." Instead of reporting on what are seemingly more pressing issues, the segment about the summit highlighted "green" efforts from the host country.

"Mr. Bush is to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao this week on the sidelines of the G8 Summit - where leaders will talk about soaring gas and food prices and the thorny issue of climate change," Yang said. "Officials want to build momentum toward next year's deadline for a global agreement to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change."

President George W. Bush in April announced his support for establishing federal emissions reduction targets with a goal of stopping greenhouse gas emission growth by 2025. That wasn't enough for "Nightly News," which still managed to find a global warming alarmist with anti-Bush sentiments to bash his efforts.

Could this have been an, "Oops, we messed up" moment for CBSNews.com?

On June 18, CBS.com posted a story claiming that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago because of global warming. [see related NB story by D.S. Hube here]

The story had no byline, but was attributed to the Associated Press. The story was identical to a June 17 Market Wire press release attributed to Tom Chalko, the scientist that made the claim of the earthquake/global warming link.

However, as of 3 p.m. on June 19, the CBS.com story was no longer available and CBS.com was engaging in a blame game of sorts. (Hat tip: Marc Morano, Inhofe EPW Press Blog)

Not a mere hell-freezes-over-moment.  Call it–in honor of Chinese Olympic diving which made the NY Times today–a a triple-twisting forward three-and-a-half flying pig, pike position.  An MSM reporter has condemned socialist big-government programs, adding a pitch for unrestrained free-market forces.  Check the end of this item for a factoid making the moment even more remarkable.

CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera made the stunning statement on Morning Joe today while reporting on a change in Chinese policy that should lower the price of crude oil world-wide.

View video here.

Don't feel bad for Geraldine Ferraro. Looks like the Hillary supporter who got into hot water back in March for claiming Obama's race was an advantage has landed on her feet, scoring a gig with the English-language edition of the People's Daily, the official organ of the Chinese Communist Party.

For some reason, Geraldine apparently decided to adopt a pen name, writing as "Ding Gang." Perhaps a Chinese-language expert out there can explain the hidden meaning behind her choice of alias.

What's that? The author of Obama Phenomenon in U.S. appearing in today's People's Daily isn't Ferraro? It really is by a guy named Gang? Well, can you blame me for thinking I saw Gerry's hand at work in Gang's article? Compare and contrast the comments that put Ferraro in the MSM doghouse, provoking Olbermann into a scatching Special Comment, with Gang's take:

It's the Olympics, Communist centralized planning-style.

The June 7 Financial Times reported on how the Communist regime in Beijing is in the process of employing "unified trainng" to get Chinese spectators to cheer and clap at this year's summer games in the precise manner that pleases the Communist Party leadership.

The "civilised stadium gesture", designed by a team of experts, involves rhythmic clapping, a double thumbs-up and raising of the spectators' clenched fists.

It is to be accompanied by the chanting of the phrase "Olympics . . . add oil! China . . . add oil!" - a slogan more freely translated as "Go Olympics! Go China! - but officials say that other nations can be substituted for China when appropriate.

"These movements work across cultures. They can be accepted and appreciated by people of any culture or language, including religious believers and disabled people," the official Xinhua news agency quoted organisers as saying.

Organisers say advance-sale tickets are virtually sold out, a success that underlines popular enthusiasm for the games but also means many spectators are likely to be unfamiliar with the norms of audience etiquette.

Over the weekend, the London Times gave us a foolish headline for a foolish story. The trumpeting headline read, "A seismic shift in China's relations with West?" This would be momentous news if true of course. But this supposed "seismic shift" was made up of whole cloth, not of any proof of actions by China otherwise. Instead of a story citing a series of decisions given a suitable amount of time to prove that China really has made some sort of shift in relations, it's all built on an ego stroke the Chinese gave western reporters. This "seismic shift" only exists in the uncritical minds of the western press because they had an easier time of covering this story with less of the usual Chinese restrictiveness. So, they now assume, because the Chinese gave the western press a few minutes of unexpected face time, this must suddenly mean there is a "seismic shift" in relations between the oppressive, murderous Chinese government and the west? The assumption is as simple-minded as it is stupid.

I don't often get as downright blatant as this, but sometimes one has to just come right out and say it -- the western media is filled with stupid people. If this story doesn't make you a believer that too many in the media don't have the good sense God gave a common rock, nothing will ever convince you. This story has it all; self-congratulatory arrogance, ignorance of history, foolishness, blindness and the willful appeasement of one of the worst, most oppressive governments in human history.

On Thursday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann seemed to mock John McCain's military service as he quipped that McCain was "awol" for not showing up for a Senate vote on providing college tuition to American troops, and further accused McCain, whom he called "Senator 'I Support the Troops,'" of "supporting himself instead of the troops." The MSNBC host also mocked McCain as being at the "front lines" of a fund-raiser in California. Notably, just a few weeks ago, Olbermann thought it was amusing to scold Ann Coulter for making a crack about Barack Obama being a "Manchurian candidate" because it might remind people of McCain, even though it was Olbermann, not Coulter, who drew a connection as he observed that the film The Manchurian Candidate was about a "presidential election and an American war hero POW who'd been brainwashed in Southeast Asia." (Video of Olbermann's "Manchurian Candidate" comments can be found here.) (Transcripts follow)

Last week I noted how Newsweek.com's Conventional Wisdom gave an "up" arrow to China, praising its response to a devastating earthquake:

Chinese government: Unlike Burma's generals, officials are responding quickly and openly to natural disaster.

Now the Jonathan Alter-edited featurette has reversed itself for the May 26, 2008 dead-tree edition:

[down arrow] China: Quake damage highlights price of shoddy building codes. Tragedy of one-child policy.

Below are the contrasting screenshots:

Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom feature has oft been the target of much snarkage here at NewsBusters, and the featurette failed to disappoint today with this doozy:

[Up Arrow] Chinese government: Unlike Burma's generals, officials are responding quickly and openly to natural disaster.

Ya think?! I mean, they're only hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics so clearly they've been hard at work putting the finishing touches on that Potemkin village. But that doesn't excuse China's human rights abuses or merit them kudos by any stretch, nor does it address how Communist Chinese building codes might be woefully substandard compared to say capitalistic Japan, which is far more often wracked by large-scale earthquakes.

Just as segregation in the South “blunted the force of moral outrage against the Nazis” during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Washington Post arts critic Philip Kennicott contended in a Saturday lead “Style” section piece on a new exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on the 1936 games, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have also undermined arguments against Chinese political repression before the Olympic games there this summer.

Deep into his May 10 treatise, “Playing With Fire: U.S. Holocaust Museum Revisits Fascist Iconography of 1936 Games and Beyond,” Kennicott asserted:

It's impossible to walk through the current exhibition without feeling a repetition syndrome. Just as Jim Crow laws blunted the force of moral outrage against the Nazis, the specter of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo has blunted the force of arguments about Chinese political repression.

In an international version of the Obama-ABC dustup, two lawsuits have been launched against CNN over remarks made by crusty commentator Jack Cafferty criticizing the Chinese government as well as products made in China.

The first suit was filed in Beijing by 14 lawyers who allege that Cafferty "violated the dignity and reputation of the Chinese people," as Reuters puts it. The second was filed this week by a beautician and a schoolteacher for similar reasons.

Cafferty's remarks actually pale in comparison to things he's said in the past about Republicans and yet, demonstrating once again that it is the right that is the biggest defender of free speech, faced no negative repercussions. Here's Cafferty's original quote about China:

As part of its celebration of Earth Day, NBC's "Today" show invited on actor/environmentalist Ed Norton to promote his National Geographic special on PBS and the "Fight Club" star actually decried America's environmental progress compared to China as he charged the U.S. had to "catch up," to them in the area of banning plastic bags.

ED NORTON: Yeah and when, and when China is ahead of us in banning these things [plastic bags], when other countries around the world are banning these things that we, we need to get in line with that and catch up.

The following is the full segment as it occurred on the April 22, "Today"

MATT LAUER: Two-time Oscar nominee Edward Norton packed a punch with his performance in the film "Fight Club," now he's fighting for a cause, planet Earth. He's narrating National Geographic's series "Strange Days On Planet Earth," which is back for its second installment premiering this week. Edward Norton, good morning, nice to see you.

The Drudge Report is highlighting a Los Angeles Times story on protests by supporters of communist China demanding CNN's Jack Cafferty be fired. David Pierson reported:

The protesters lined Sunset Boulevard from Cahuenga Boulevard to Wilcox Avenue chanting "Fire Cafferty" and "CNN liar" and singing the Chinese national anthem and other patriotic songs.

"Patriotic songs" are apparently sympathetic when they are sung in support of Red China. Doesn't Pierson or the Times consider it noteworthy that this kind of protest wouldn't be permitted inside China? Or that the Chinese national anthem is loaded with irony? It's called "March of the Volunteers," and begins "Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!" What a joke.

Instead, Pierson spotlights a protester who says he was in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and now China is so vastly improved: