John Farley’s MisInformation Desk

I just got word that The Dalai Lama and George Bush had a little pow-wow yesterday. The one living person I admire most meeting with one of the few people I admire least, I’m not sure how I am supposed to feel. I imagine that the Lama had met our fair leader with words of wisdom and peace and true human insight. Likewise, I imagine that these words fell on deaf, or at the very least, dumb, ears. But W did present the Lama with the Congressional Gold Medal, a mere booby prize when compared with the Nobel Peace prize His Holiness has previously received.

It should come as no surprise, though, that China was up in arms when they discovered that our leaders were meeting with the Lama. Just as lucrative trade talks between our nations were beginning to open up, His Holiness has to find his way into our capitol. “Oh, what tales of horror and woe would that treasonous Lama bestow upon your nation’s leaders? All shameful lies!” retorts the Chinaman in the streets. Or as CNN reports,

“The words and deeds of the Dalai Lama in the past decades show he is a political refugee engaging in secessionist activities under the cloak of religion,” he said.

Zhang Quingli, the Communist Party secretary of Tibet, was more forceful in his criticism of the Dalai Lama, who has been based in India since fleeing his homeland in 1959. “He is a person who has tried to split the motherland, who lacks love for his home country,” he told reporters in Beijing.

The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, has said he advocates autonomy for Tibet, and is not calling for it to be a separate country.

Last month, the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, met the Dalai Lama, in Berlin.

Last week, China announced that, for technical reasons, it was canceling a planned meeting on human rights with German officials.

Hmmm. The status quo remains intact. My only question is, where is China’s Nobel Peace Prize?

Posted on October 17th, 2007 by John Farley
Filed under: Trepidation