How badly do you want all of the major actors in the Olympic farce to fall flat on their faces over the next fortnight?

No terror attacks, of course – that would be tragedy. Rather, I wish for nothing but the worst for the Chinese government, the International Olympic Committee, NBC, and the insufferably arrogant International Olympic “movement” that touts the games as proof that rather than being “Killer Angels,” mankind is, in fact, capable of playing nice with each other.

Never mind that every single sport (or nearly all of them) have a World Championship every couple of years or so where athletes and gamers from all over the world come together and have a gay old time without anyone calling out the tanks. The winners are feted just as gloriously at these championships. They get to stand on podiums and hear their national anthems played. The difference is that NBC usually isn’t there pawing at you for a vacuous interview as some blow dried bimbo asks you how it feels to lose your race, coming within two tenths of a second of winning a gold medal thus making you immortal.

Cut the “brotherhood of man” crap. The prune faced, super rich, superannuated fossils that run the International Olympic Committee are laughing all the way to the bank because once again, they believe they have put one over on the rest of us. The IOC has been using the “peace, love, dope” angle – with all of us being the dope – for 100 years and have cleaned up royally. We’re talking about revenue greater than that for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Basketball Association combined. That’s $4 billion in ticket sales, broadcast rights, T-Shirts, and toilet seat covers. And that doesn’t include the various country’s individual Olympic committees. The Olympic logo itself is one of the more valuable trademarks on the planet.

It used to be that only “amateurs” were allowed to compete in the Games. That was always a questionable proposition because even before the eastern bloc countries made a mockery of the term, plenty of western athletes were getting money under the table from nationalist boosters in their own countries.

Now, they make no bones about it at all. Track and field athletes get appearance fees and huge bonuses for medals from their sponsors. And if you don’t have a sponsor (or play professionally in sports like tennis, baseball, basketball, or soccer) American corporations have hired hundreds of world class athletes, given them make-work jobs that they get paid a salary even if they only show up to collect a paycheck.

In the end, we aped the commie bloc to build an Olympic team second to none.

The Games begin on August 8th with an opening ceremony that we are told will outdo in regimentation, and lockstep, mindless, slavish, robotic grandiosity the catatonic crowds at a Kim Jung Il birthday celebration in a North Korean stadium. No one does government mandated fun quite like the commies. And while in the stands, when you’re told to hold up that flash card by God you better thrust that piece of cardboard skyward with all your enthusiasm or else. But woe betide the luckless card chucker if they accidentally turn the wrong side of the card to the front! I’m sure the Chicoms have some suitably draconian punishment for fouling up the massive display of military precision in flash card propaganda.

The theme of this Olympics is going to be “One World. One Dream” which, by definition, begs the question of whose “dream” we are talking about. I doubt very much whether there is much room in there for the “dream” of individual liberty: More like the nightmare of communist control. But that’s okay. The massive display of citizen coordination and participation by the Chicoms at the opening ceremonies will no doubt impress the lame brained among us.

And the world will marvel at how far these clever Chinamen have come since the days of Mao and Chou en-Lai when regimented displays like this were reserved for marching off to the fields in forced labor battalions in order to bring about another non-”Miracle” of Chinese agriculture.

This is why I wish the Chinese government ill in their efforts to portray their prison in a positive light. Hopefully, Mother Nature and the bureaucratic stupidity of the communist state will help that process along. Already, the Chinese are taking desperate measures to rid the city of Beijing of pollution that would lead to the cancellation of events like the Marathon and the longer endurance events. They have “seeded” the air with pellets that are supposed to disperse the choking smog – with mixed results.

Failing that, why not just deny that the pollution exists at all, that all that coughing, phlegm expelling air is really just fine – just a little humidity that’s all:

As Beijing’s polluted air came close to exceeding levels even the Chinese consider dangerous yesterday, one of the International Olympic Committee’s most senior figures dismissed the yellow-grey haze that periodically hangs over the city as mist, and blamed the media for overstating pollution problems.

Air quality in Beijing remains a big cause for concern three days before the start of the games. Members of the US athletics team arrived in the city wearing face masks yesterday and organisers are preparing to postpone or relocate endurance events including the marathon and road cycling if smog levels reach dangerous limits.

But yesterday Arne Ljungqvist, chairman of the IOC’s medical commission, said he was confident that pollution would not harm athletes or visitors, and suggested media coverage had created a false impression of pollution levels.

“The mist in the air that we see in those places, including here, is not a feature of pollution primarily but a feature of evaporation and humidity,” he told the IOC’s annual session. “We do have a communication problem here. Once the misconception has become sort of established in the minds of people, it’s not that easy to get the right message through.

Then there’s the delicious thought that the commies could shoot themselves in the foot by showing their true nature to the world. They’ve already told journalists which websites they can access and which are out of bounds. Now it appears they’ve really stepped in it and demonstrated why being a real journalist and living in a totalitarian state can be a painful experience:

Chinese police Tuesday apologised for roughing up two Japanese journalists as Beijing’s Olympic commitment to allow foreign media freedom came under scrutiny three days before the Games opened.
The apology came after border police “clashed” with the Japanese journalists who had arrived in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang region after an alleged terrorist attack Monday left 16 police dead, Xinhua news agency said.

“The local foreign affairs department made an apology Tuesday to two Japanese reporters,” Xinhua said.

A photographer for the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper was forcibly detained late Monday and kicked by police in the city of Kashgar, his employer said.

A reporter for the Nippon Television Network was also detained and treated roughly by Chinese police who pushed his face to the ground, the network said.

Obviously, Chinese police must work on their people skills. Manhandling and kicking peasants is one thing. Who are they going to complain to? But roughing up journalists is a no-no. Such news unsettles the populace and reflects badly on the state. Not that the government doesn’t approve of roughing up journalists from time to time – just as long as they’re Chinese journalists all is well.

But its not just the Chinese government and the Olympic Movement I want to see with egg all over their faces. The National Broadcasting Company paid more than $900 million for the right to broadcast from China’s workers’ paradise and are wrestling with a dilemma that no American news organization should have to think twice about; if the Chinese police start bashing heads at protests, should we cover it?

Hundreds of athletes will parade into a stadium in front of world leaders, including President Bush, and a huge global television audience. If an athlete holds a protest sign or waves a Tibetan flag, how will the Chinese hosts react? Will the television networks show the scene? How will the Chinese handle the media for the rest of the Games?

The stakes are high for both the network, which paid $900 million for broadcast rights for the Olympics, and the reputation of NBC News. If it covers any controversies aggressively, it risks drawing the ire of the Chinese and interfering with coverage of sports events. But if it shies from coverage of any protests, NBC risks being criticized in the West for kowtowing to China — particularly since its corporate parent, General Electric, is aggressively expanding its investments in China.

One thing is for sure, vows Steve Capus, the president of NBC’s news division: “If there’s news, we’re going to cover it.”

Given other stories about how NBC has been “negotiating” over covering human rights controversies, Mr. Capus may be behind the curve a bit. I have no doubt NBC news would love to cover street clashes between protestors and Chinese cops. But I am equally sure that any such coverage will be a corporate decision and Capus may find that he’s been cut off at the knees. Everyone remembers Tienanmen Square and the government pulling the plug on networks broadcasting the crackdown. Would NBC corporate risk their $900 million investment just to capture a few minutes of ugliness when their hosts demand they only cover the spectacle of sport and the glory of the new Chinese Empire?

Negotiating freedom – as some western journalists are doing with internet access – doesn’t cut it in my book. Bartering freedom of the press so that you won’t offend a host country smacks too much of grovelling. Imagine if all western journalists got together and decided they wouldn’t take any restrictions on who or what they can cover and that they should be able to access any damn webpage they want. This would leave the Chinese government with a choice; kick them out or put up with a little freedom of the press.

The helluva it is, we’re going to have to go through the same thing in a few years when the Winter Olympics are held in Russia. I’m sure Putin & Co. will put on quite a show when their time comes.

Holding the Olympic games in Nazi Germany back in 1936 was the biggest mistake ever made by the ringleaders of the gang of extortionists known as the International Olympic Committee. Hitler was so concerned about the Reich’s image that he had all the signs taken down that indicated Jews were second class citizens (“Caution: Sharp Turn Ahead. Jews: 70 KPH!”).

But Hitler also took precautions that the international press would not be able to interview the few who openly opposed his regime by having several prominent activists he had been unable to corral arrested in the weeks prior to the games.

Once again, the elitist, Euro-snobs who run the Olympic movement have thumbed their nose at the world, this time by choosing Communist China to host the games. And as before in Nazi Germany, the Chinese are sprucing up their “workers’ paradise” in order to put the best possible face on their tyrannical rule.

They have murdered hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats who roamed free in Beijing. No, they were not euthanized but rather taken to camps and allowed to starve to death.

They have cracked down on internet access for those in attendance so that no breath of opposition is heard.

They have reportedly placed spies in hotels where westerners will be staying in order to keep an eye on them.

And now, we hear from the Washington Post that the few human rights activists not already in jail have been rounded up in anticipation of the game’s opening next week:

The Olympic Games have become the occasion for a broad crackdown against dissidents, gadflies and malcontents this summer. Although human rights activists say they have no accurate estimate of how many people have been imprisoned, they believe the figure to be in the thousands.

The crackdown comes seven years after the secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee declared that staging the Games in the Chinese capital would “not only promote our economy but also enhance all social conditions, including education, health and human rights.”

Now, human rights have been set back rather than enhanced, activists say.

“The Olympics have reversed the clock,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based specialist for Human Rights in China.

Saying “I told you so” does little good for those who are being thrown in jail so the government can avoid any “trouble” like demonstrations or wayward activists giving interviews to curious journalists. But the question must be asked nevertheless; what in God’s name where those superannuated idiots on the IOC thinking when they gave the games to China?

The games will go forward. Billions will watch. Athletes will be seen smiling on the victory stand, proudly listening as their national anthems are played.

And languishing in dark prisons will be thousands of Chinese whose only crime is that they want more freedom.

I personally plan my own boycott of the games. I refuse to watch as long as the media is a willing tool of the oppressors and, in accordance with the directives of the Chinese government, refuse to cover the human rights angle during the games.

They owe it to those who are suffering the consequences of the IOC’s groveling before the Chinese government.

 This blog post originally appeared in The American Thinker

I am so pleased that our freedom loving president has decided to attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing, China. I’m sure he is relieved that he doesn’t have to pretend to care about those wild ass Tibetan monks and nuns who just a short while ago were being slaughtered in the streets of Lhasa. After all, if CNN isn’t paying attention, why should he?

We are, after all, into our “Let’s not be beastly to the Chinese” mode this month – despite Beijing’s utter refusal to seriously assist the world in stopping the slaughter in Darfur where they hold sway with the government and continue to supply them arms. The same could be said for most hot spots in the world today where China has chosen – shall we say – a more “pragmatic” approach to international diplomacy. In other words, if the solution would harm Chinese economic interests, better to be a Sabot than pragmatist.

From Iran, to the Congo, to Burma – where western countries tried unsuccessfully to enter and alleviate the horrific suffering caused by the typhoon that hit Burma on May 2 – China has seen fit to block, impede, ignore, and otherwise discombobulate efforts to resolve these problems and protect the peace or save lives.

This is the reality of living with a China that is beginning to flex its muscles on the world stage. Quiescent for 600 years, China is back with a vengeance and while cooperating in a very limited sphere of priorities, the Dragon prefers to go its own way. It is procuring oil deals in the Middle East, trade deals in South America, and beginning to dominate its neighbors in East Asia economically.

And part of this muscle flexing – a very large psychological part – is hosting the Summer Olympics. As much a confidence booster for its own people as it is a showcase for foreigners (who they still see as barbarians), the Games are an announcement that China is back and that she is about to start kicking butt and take names in the international arena. The powers that be on the International Olympic Committee who handed the Chinese this propaganda coup – fabulously wealthy, old monied European dilettantes and obscure royalty – are playing with forces they neither know nor care little about. The Chinese government dangled billions in front of their eyes and that was enough. To hell with human rights said the IOC lickspittles.

True to form, the Chinese recently cracked down on Tibetans who have a slightly different idea about who should be running their country and it does not include the Chinese army and paramilitary units who routinely whack people they consider troublemakers. The death toll from the riots during last March’s uprising was around 55 we are told. What was never announced were the number of people – monks included – dragged out of their houses in the middle of the night and simply “disappeared” in the old fashioned Stalinist tradition. Word trickled out that entire monasteries were emptied and the monks beaten and shot. Some of the more prominent human rights activists are under house arrest or in some Tibetan dungeon somewhere.

But since the New York Times, the Washington Post, and even Keith Olbermann seems to have mislaid their outrage over this blatant violation of common decency and the UN Charter on Human Rights, our brave Sir President feels it now safe to kow-tow to the Chinese and pretend as if “Tibet” is just a place name on a map:

US President George W Bush will attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, the White House says.

Human rights groups and opposition politicians including presidential hopeful Barack Obama had urged Mr Bush to consider boycotting the ceremony.

Beijing’s rights record has come under intense scrutiny since Tibetan protests were suppressed in March.

Troops used force to quell the biggest anti-China demonstrations in Tibetan communities for two decades.

Beijing says rioters killed about 20 people in the unrest, but exiled Tibetan groups accuse security forces of killing scores of protesters.

Even Obama supports a boycott of the opening ceremonies – today. Where he might come down tomorrow on the subject is a different kettle of fish. But for the moment, the messiah is four square in favor of making this small, yet telling statement about what America thinks of the Chinese bully boys cracking down on Tibetans.

But not our George. His compassionate conservative answer to critics?

“He believes he’s going to China to support first and foremost our athletes. He sees this as a sporting competition,” she said.

How touching. Does this make world leaders who intend to boycott the ceremonies hard hearted monsters who don’t support their nation’s athletes?

Some world leaders are missing the 8 August opening ceremony.

Germany’s Angela Merkel is not attending the Olympics. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be in Beijing for the closing ceremony only.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says his attendance depends on progress in dialogue between Beijing and the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Those talks are going about as well as can be expected – which is to say not well at all. This probably means that Sarkozy will join Brown and Merkel in insulting their athletes by missing the opening of the games.

There are those, such as James Joyner, who don’t care much one way or the other:

I don’t feel strongly either way about this issue. My preference would have been not to award China the Olympics, given not only their abysmal human rights record but also the ridiculous level of pollution in Beijing which puts the health of the athletes in danger. Boycotting the opening ceremonies would embarrass the Chinese government and send a message, I suppose, although it would likely just increase their intransigence and make them less cooperative.

What strikes me as interesting in all this is that Bush has rather clearly, in his second term, become much more cognizant that symbolic gestures and rhetoric have an impact beyond the domestic audience. A boycott would likely play well at home, since both the Left and the Right are united in their distaste for the PRC government, albeit for different reasons. But China is the key player in Asia and their cooperation is essential in addressing many issues of strategic concern to the United States in that region. Thinking through the consequences of thumbing our noses at them, therefore, is important.

Joyner’s assessment of the problem of “thumbing our noses” at the Chinese is dubious in my mind. We are, after all, talking about a small gesture that if the Chinese do indeed get their nose all bent out of shape because of it, only prove themselves to be unworthy of any approbation for having “come so far” as a nation. His analysis also fails to assess the damage caused by our not standing up for human rights and Tibet.

If the Chinese are so paranoid and sensitive about anything marring their precious games (they murdered hundreds of thousands of cats and dogs to “clean up” Beijing), perhaps they should address the reality of Tibet rather than trying to sweep it under the rug – something Joyner inadvertently is encouraging them to do. Bush or no Bush, the news nets are not going to ignore Tibet or the boycott by the Big Three in Europe. Ergo, Bush will be seen as the weak sister in the face of Chinese pressure to conform, to get with the program, and celebrate China’s coming out party.

A small thing? I think not. The symbolism of Bush attending the opening ceremonies will not help us in the slightest despite Jim’s hopeful outlook and as the only major western leader in attendance will give unwanted legitimacy to a government whose own people are suffering under a Communist tyranny. I wonder what the Chinese dissidents – those few not in jail at the moment – are thinking about Bush’s decision?

The fact is, because Tibet and Chinese domestic politics is largely ignored at the moment by the press, Bush feels safe in making his announcement. Out of sight and out of mind.

And for the Tibetans, out of luck as well.

Even a rabid sports fan like myself recognizes the Olympics for what they are – a plot by starry eyed one worlders, striped pants internationalists, filthy rich do-gooders, and anachronistic royalists to take over the world and force their saccharine sweet, brotherhood of man crapola on the rest of us.

I’m kidding, of course – mostly. The part about filthy rich dilettantes with nothing else to do, putting on an athletic extravaganza for their own amusement is not far from the truth. The International Olympic Committee has shown through the years that the fake European royalty, the decadent descendants of fabulously wealthy European commercial houses, and the group of genuine shady characters who are the real power in that body believe they have a gold mine and plan on milking the games for all they’re worth.

And to give the lie to the very idea of an “Olympic spirit” that the IOC and the “Olympic Movement” try to foist upon unsuspecting rubes and leftists the world over, the entire point of the games has been lost – gentleman (and gentle lady) amateurs competing in an atmosphere of competition free from politics and other mundane considerations.

The Olympic torch relay is part of the lie. Forced by the prospect of thousands of pro-Tibet protestors who might get violent, San Francisco authorities changed the route of the relay at the last minute, running the relay through streets empty of onlookers thus defeating the whole purpose of the exercise in the first place.

That didn’t stop one enterprising American athlete from ruining the day even more for the Chinese:

A New Yorker bearing the Olympic torch staged a rogue anti-China protest Wednesday even as cops took extreme measures to thwart demonstrators in San Francisco.

As she ran with the flame, Majora Carter, 41, a South Bronx environmental activist, whipped out a small Tibetan flag to condemn China’s human rights abuses in the Himalayan province.

Carter, who hid the flag in her sleeve, was quickly hustled off the route by surprised police who seized the torch.

The image of American police stifling free speech at the behest of communists made Allah’s blood boil:

[O]ne of the American cops shows her how they do it in Beijing, giving her a gratuitous shove into the crowd to keep her away from the communist propaganda pageant she was momentarily a part of. She’s wrong on the law, to be sure; her free speech rights don’t entitle her to violate the contract she signed before participating. But watching U.S. cops enforce Chinese policy is so disgusting, Newsom should have simply canceled the event lest he be forced to do it.

Free speech is one issue that makes the Olympics a cesspool of corrupted ideals. How about the idea that the athletes should compete solely for the thrill of the competition with no thought of renumeration?

The fact that almost all the western athletes who will be competing are being paid by their home grown sports federation (which usually receives its money from the nation’s Olympic Committee) means that the very meaning of the word “amateur” has been corrupted beyond recognition. And from the beginning of the revival of the games in 1896, politics has been a constant companion.

When Eastern European athletes began to outshine the west due to superior training, a drug regimen that built superior bodies, and the fact that their athletes were given make believe jobs by the state so that they could train full time, the US and other western countries decided to change the way they approached the Games.

While athletes from the west were previously struggling to combine training and making a living, most western Olympic Committees made a decision to adopt the communist model. Of course, the state didn’t give the athletes make believe jobs. It was corporations who, in return for hiring top flight athletes they could feature in commercials, paid the US Olympic Committee so that the company could become an “official sponsor” of the games.

The point being, of course, that these guys are about as amateur and pure as a hooker on Welles street in Chicago. These days, the Olympics don’t even require the fig leaf. They openly encourage professional athletes to compete. Most of the world class track and field athletes have been making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and a gold medal will set them up for life. Olympic soccer uses professional league players on the national teams. Others who participate in lesser known sports receive a healthy stipend from their sport’s governing body in order to train constantly for the big show that occurs every 4 years.

As a sports fan, I could care less if they pay the players or not. But as a former hopelessly incurable romantic, there was something to be said for an event that brought the world together for a fortnight to celebrate athletics and compete peacefully. One of the most cherished memories of my youth is watching American Dave Wottle on TV round the last turn of the track in the 800 Meter finals in Munich and with a spectacular final kick in the last 25 meters, overtake the Russian to win an improbable gold medal.

Those were the Olympics marred by the death of 11 Israeli athletes who were kidnapped and murdered at the hands of Black September. In spite of pleadings from many around the world, the crotchety head of the IOC at the time, Avery Brundage, declared that the show must go on.

And the show has gone on despite boycotts, corruption (bribe taking in connection with the 2002 Winter Games), and the discovery that the East German teams that garnered such an extraordinary number of medals featured not only blood doping and steroid use, but also taking the transgender revolution to new heights by turning women into men, feeding their female athletes steroids when they were as young as 11. Two coaches were later found guilty of giving steroids to athletes and not telling them what they were (they told them they were “vitamins”).

All of these issues with the Olympics pales in comparison to the straitjacket the IOC puts athletes in so that any expression of individual political thought is forbidden. The most famous example was at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics when two black American athletes – John Carlos and Tommie Smith – who medaled in the 200 meter dash, raised their clenched fist salute to black power during the playing of the national anthem during the medal ceremony.

One might question the gesture but to punish them by sending them home and stripping them of their medals was so foreign to our idea of freedom of speech that it raises the question of why we should participate in such a hypocritical and oppressive event.

And that goes double for the Olympics in China:

Athletes who display Tibetan flags at Olympic venues — including in their own rooms — could be expelled from this summer’s Games in Beijing under anti-propaganda rules.

Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said that competitors were free to express their political views but faced sanctions if they indulged in propaganda.

He accompanied those comments with an admission that the Games were in “crisis” after pro-Tibet protests engulfed the Olympic torch relay.

Mr Rogge’s call for Beijing to abide by its promise to address human rights was given short shrift by Beijing, which bluntly told him to keep politics out of the Games.

Riddle me this: How is it possible that competitors are “free to express their political views” but will get kicked out for displaying the Tibetan flag? This kind of doublespeak is worthy of the communists and poor, naive, earnest Mr. Rogge – who actually believed the Chinese would improve their human rights if their Olympic bid was successful – is tying himself into an intellectual pretzel in an attempt to reconcile these two radically different notions:

Addressing concerns about free speech, Mr Rogge described the scenario of a Spanish athlete doing a lap of honour in the Olympic stadium with Spain’s national flag and his provincial flag as “perfectly legitimate”.

He said: “We have had many examples of mixed flags where the athlete is proud of that. Is there a will to demonstrate propaganda or is it a desire to demonstrate joy in his victory?”

Apparently, if your political views don’t offend anyone – most of all the host country – then you are perfectly free to express them. (I wonder what Rogge would have said if that same Spanish athlete had grabbed a Basque flag instead of a “provincial” one?)

But Rogge, the Chinese, and the rest of the whole bloody Olympic “movement” just doesn’t get it. They have no clue what “free speech” might be. The point is that any display of nationalism is by definition propaganda and that there is no difference in making a political statement about your own country or someone else’s – not to anyone who cares a tiny bit about “free speech.”

Going back to 1968, no one complained a few days after the Carlos-Smith protest when George Foreman, after winning his gold medal in boxing, grabbed a miniature American flag and walked around the ring celebrating. The fact that Foreman’s political statement was a response to a political gesture by others made Foreman equally guilty of disseminating propaganda. But it was nice propaganda, the kind that the American Olympic Committee (who pressured Brundage to seize the gold medals of Carlos and Smith while kicking them out of the Olympic village) heartily approved.

It is this kind of rank hypocrisy that makes the Olympics such degrading venue for Americans. If it were up to me, I’d pass out Tibet flags to every single athlete marching under the American flag during the opening ceremonies and force the Chinese to kick them all out. The Olympic boosters – corporations, sports federations, and especially governments – who harp on the “spirit of brotherhood” present in the games are selling a poisonous idea; that freedom is separate from the notion that we are all equal and that therefore, we should all get along in peace.

 I’m all for that. Just don’t expect me to kowtow to any government that oppresses its people and then tries to use the Olympic games as a perfume to remove the stench of their rotten human rights policies. The athletes should feel that way as well which is why perhaps we should be handing out those Tibetan flags to anyone and everyone who sides with freedom against tyranny.

Such a move might ruin the Olympic games. But it would be one helluva statement of solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the world and would usher in an era of true “brotherhood” for the Olympics.

The progress of the Olympic torch which snakes its way around the world after being lit in Greece to end up in the host country and carried into the stadium at the opening ceremonies where it is used to light the Olympic flame for the duration of the games is followed with great interest by many around the world. It is a symbol of the Olympic spirit and ideally, should not be extinguished from the time it is lit to the end of the games.

Occasionally, the flame has gone out as a result of weather or some mechanical malfunction with the torch. But it has been a long time since it was extinguished as a result of protests against the host country’s political and human rights policies:

The Olympic torch relay was disrupted Monday by protesters in Paris demonstrating against the Chinese government, causing authorities to twice extinguish the flame and put the torch on a bus, according to The Associated Press.

The torch was being carried by a wheelchair athlete when it was halted and extinguished for a second time due to demonstrators shouting, according to AP. Backup flames, also lit from the birthplace of the ancient games in Olympia, Greece, are on call with the relay at all times to relight the torch.

Agencies report that the relay has now resumed.

The incidents came one day after human-rights activist demonstrators made the torch’s journey through London more like running the gauntlet than a journey of celebration, with UK police making more than two dozen arrests

This is an enormous embarrassment to the Chinese government. The progress of the torch is supposed to be triumphal. Instead, it is turning into a constant reminder of the government crackdown on the Tibetan people and their continued occupation of the tiny country.

Measures to protect the torch for the remainder of its journey through France are surreal:

Paris police have conceived a security plan to keep the torch in a safe "bubble," during its 17-mile (28 km) journey, with a multi-layered protective force to surround the torch as it moves along the route.
 
French torchbearers will be encircled by several hundred officers, some in riot police vehicles and on motorcycles, others on rollerblades and on foot. Chinese torch escorts will immediately surround the torchbearer, with Paris police on rollerblades moving around them.
 
French firefighters in jogging shoes will encircle the officers on rollerblades while motorcycle police will form the outer layer of security. The relay route in Paris is also significantly shorter than that in London Sunday.

Police rollerblading around the torchbearer is probably not the visual the Chinese government would wish to see carried around the world when reporting on the progress of the Olympic flame.

Just how is the Chinese government reacting to all this controversy swirling around the torch relay? They are basically ignoring the protests, chalking them up to "a small number of pro-Tibet" protestors:

There have been attempts made to disturb and sabotage the Torch Relay by a small number of "pro-Tibet independence" activists.

The Olympic Torch Relay embodies the Olympic spirit and represents the earnestness and excitement with which the world awaits the Olympic Games. A small number of "pro-Tibet independence" activists have attempted to sabotage the event. During the Greece leg of the relay, a few activists attempted to stop the relay by lying on the street. In London, a few protesters planned and carried out several destructive actions. One "pro-Tibet independence" activist tried to grab the torch and another attempted to extinguish the flame when well-known U.K. television presenter Konnie Huq was carrying the torch in northwest London. Their actions were stopped by local police, although Konnie Huq sustained a slight injury. During a lunch break, several "pro-Tibet independence" activists got past security in an attempt to clash with torchbearers and disturb the relay. The British police were successful in preventing these efforts.

Local people in London strongly opposed the attempt to sabotage the Torch Relay. And the behavior of "pro-Tibet independence" activists has aroused resentment and received condemnation in London.

Press reports had thousands of protestors in the streets of London and Paris while little in the way of condemnation has come their way – except from Chinese officials. But the above is what the Chinese people are seeing and reading about the torch and its torturous passage through the free countries of the world.

Up next for the torch is San Francisco. With its large ethnic Chinese population, one would think the torch would be in big trouble. But the Chinese have a friend in Mayor Gavin Newsom who has deemed any disruption of the festivities a black mark against San Francisco as much as the Chinese. Hence, he has restricted protests to areas where the cameras following the torch will not be able to record how angry people are with China’s Tibet policy:

 

Organizations that oppose China’s human-rights record said Tuesday that they’ve been denied demonstration permits at large outdoor gathering areas on April 9, the day of the torch relay.

They will instead be forced into certain areas, possibly far from the main torch route. City officials said that the restrictions are necessary to ensure security at the event but that those precautions shouldn’t limit the protesters’ rights to gather, a right guaranteed in the First Amendment. Tens of thousands of protesters are expected, organizers said.

The event will be open to everyone, said Mayor Gavin Newsom, including "those who want to see this as an opportunity to raise the flag of concern about issues of disagreement with the Chinese government. That is something that is sacrosanct to us." But that opportunity will be limited in ways uncommon for the city that hosts myriad rallies and protests.

Protesters will be restricted to "areas set up for First Amendment rights issues," according to Sgt. Neville Gittens, spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department.

Maybe they should have asked President Bush to carry the torch. You can bet Newsom and his crew would have bent over backwards to make sure there were tens of thousands of protestors following the flame then.

Indeed, one is hardpressed to think of a situation where liberal protestors in San Francisco have been restricted from making their feelings known against such targets as military recruitment, docking of Navy ships, or speeches by prominent conservatives. Apparently it only matters when they might be seen as being beastly to a murderous communist government – a curious but typical bit of intellectual legerdermain by liberals.

I would guess that a few Chinese protestors will make it to the relay route and attempt to disrupt its passage anyway. I say good on them for not allowing the French of all people to outdo Americans in a demonstration of liberty loving. And I can’t see how the Paris police will outdo any west coast cops when it comes to rollerblading. 

Our guys can outblade the French any day of the week.  

This blog post originally appears on The American Thinker