perfidy

So two weeks ago I attended the live broadcast of "Hardball" with Howard Dean.

This last Tuesday, I was one of only 800 people to attend a talk by Wen Jiabao, Premier of China. ("How was it, Johno?" "How do you think? I attended a once-in-a-lifetime talk by a leader of the unfree world, and he took audience questions. It was awesome.")

This coming Monday, I'm going to be at "Hardball" once again, this time with Joe Leiberman.

This weekend, I'm going to try to get Goodwife Johno down to Foxwoods for a few hands of blackjack. If my luck's hot, I really oughtta do all I can to cash in. It's the American way!

But seriously... on Tuesday, I attended a speech by the Prime Minister of China. He spoke for about an hour on the topic of "coming together". Never in my lifetime did I foresee a day when a leader of China, in the interest of polite innocuous diplomacy, would openly advocate the democratization of Chinese politics and the marketization of China's economy. Although most of what he said was simple diplomatic boilerplate and therefore only mildly interesting, he spent a lot of time talking about trade, Taiwan (semicircumspectly), and the problems facing China as she tries to deal with SARS, AIDS, industralization, education, and the adequate distribution of goods and services to the entire population. Not mentioned: Tibet, except by a protester who was promptly and gently removed.