Below The Beltway

The guys over at Raising Kaine aren’t too happy with this statement by Congressman Frank Wolf:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House Republican — chafing over President Bush’s plan to attend this year’s Beijing Olympics — wants to legally prohibit U.S. government officials from using federal money to go.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., cited concerns about China’s record on human rights during a congressional hearing on Thursday and said Bush’s presence would be akin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt sitting in the same stands as Germany’s Adolf Hitler in 1936.

“Ronald Reagan would have never gone to the Olympics. I guarantee you that. Never gone,” said Wolf, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Wolf, who co-chairs a congressional caucus on Sudan, blames China for not using its close ties with the Sudanese government to end the violence in Darfur. Wolf also charges China has sold weapons to U.S. enemies, jailed countless political prisoners and tried to spy on America’s high-tech industry, including companies in his district.

Wolf said he realizes he probably can’t stop Bush from attending, but any American seen waving in the stands “will go down in history as cooperating in the genocide Olympics of 2008. And history will never, ever, ever forgive them.”

In response Lowell at RK says this:

While very few Americans have much love for the current government of China, the fact is that China is an important country with which the United States has extensive, albeit complex, relations — economic, political, etc. This August, China will host the 2008 Summer Olympics, in which thousands of athletes from around the world — including a team from the United States — will compete. In addition, the games will be viewed on TV by a worldwide audience in the billions, including perhaps 200 million (or more) Americans.

(…)

Frank Wolf says that any American who is “waving in the stands” of the 2008 summer Olympic games is cooperating in genocide. Presumably, when he says “waving in the stands,” he’s also including the 200 million Americans who will watch the Olympics on TV, since they are a big part of what will make these games an economic success or failure for China, the networks, etc. You might want to keep that in mind this August as you watch America’s best swimmers, divers, gymnasts, and other athletes “go for the gold.” Frank Wolf says that “history will never, ever forgive [you].”

And Wolf is wrong to say this why ? He’s absolutely right about China’s atrocious human rights record, as recent events in Tibet demonstrate clearly. There is no reason for Americans to give sanction to such a regime by participating in, or watching, an event that will paper over the fact that the People’s Republic of China is, in fact, a brutal dictatorship.

Also, I have a question for those who might think that talking about boycotts is foolish.

What would you have done in 1936 on the eve of the Berlin Olympics ?

The spectacle of American athletes participating in a two-week long Nazi pep rally was, quite honestly, disgusting. We should have stayed home then, and we should stay home now. Barring that, I for one won’t be watching a single second of the Olympics, at least not until Canada hosts the Winter Olympics in 2010.

H/T: Freedom Democrats