Dick Cheney got a taste of his own medicine in Bejing last week when portions of a speech he gave at a Chinese University were later edited in reproductions.
The Chinese are about as intolerant as -- dare I say -- our own government these days when it comes to political dissention of any sort. So it makes perfect sense that when Tricky Dick Cheney started spewing empty rhetoric about "the desire for freedom is universal," the Chinese censorship machine went into overdrive.
The Chinese aren't fond of anything regarding "indivudual freedom" much less when it comes from a censorship maniac like Dick Cheney. Ironically, Cheney was too enveloped in his own hypocrisy to see the humor in censoring a censor.
The New York Times reported that, "American officials say that to the best of their knowledge the Chinese side lived up to the letter of their agreement on Mr. Cheney's speech, but expressed frustration that the record was later expunged."
Poor Dick, I guess it sucks when your own ideals regarding limitations on expression come back to bite you in the butt. It reminds me of something Justin Saint Claire wrote about in his column this weekend in NEXT: "It's good to have right-wing, conservative, disconnected individuals who seek to hold people to standards they themselves wouldn't meet if facing similar circumstances."
Sounds about right.
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