Posted on 08/04/2008 1:54:40 PM PDT by Pyro7480
NBC’s Matt Lauer, broadcasting live from the Great Wall of China on Monday’s "Today" show, referred to the "double-edged sword" of the world’s attention being on China for the Summer Olympic Games and asked a Chinese professor about how that "spotlight" might be "co-opted by party crashers who have a bone to pick with this country. He then asked the professor, "How worried are the people here about that?"
Lauer, who will be in China during the next weeks for the Olympics, interviewed Professor Teng Dimeng of the Beijing Foreign Studies University 20 minutes into 7 am Eastern hour of the NBC program. According to the University’s own website, it is a "key university under the [Chinese] Ministry of Education" and that "since her initiation, the [Communist] Party Central Committee and the late Chinese leaders, including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, has provided great care and teachings for the development of the university." Therefore, Lauer, despite introducing Teng as a professor, was actually speaking to an employee of the Communist Chinese government.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
I sort of agree with him. Look, I actually hate the Olympics and the whole “it’s a small world” angle to them. But, within the realm of the Olympics, the idea is nations putting aside their political differences to conduct a sporting event in the name of brotherhood. Then, the nations all trust (for some reason) the IOC to choose the venue, etc.
To claim to believe in all that Olympic spirit, and then to bitch and moan about the politics of the host nation is silly and unproductive.
We know who the Chicoms are and what we do.. yet, the IOC gave the Olympcis to them. What, did we think the Chicoms wouldn’t be Chicoms any more when the Olympics rolled around?
I forget, what do "the people" have to do with anything in China?
Ever since the Berlin Games of 1936 (and perhaps earlier) nations have sought to host the Games as a way of announcing their arrival on the world stage. Bitching about he Host country is just the flip-side of that. Frankly, I think that people just pay lip-service to the spirit of the Games.
The olympics are an anachronistic charade. They couldn’t pay me to watch them.
I don’t even pay it lip service!
Very unfortunate choice of words by Lauer. "Party crashers" implies they found a party to crash.
As we all know, the Party finds you...
I simply don't care for them any more.
The only event I like is the women’s curling in the winter olympics. I can watch that all day.
No kidding, you couldn't pay me to 'crash' that party!
I'm staying away, and I'd have like our President to have stayed away too. Oh well.
Geez, I can’t believe what I’m reading here. Where is your patriotism for your own country’s athletes? The Olympics has a long and honorable history. It is an athletic event, not a political one. It’s a time to put political differences aside mementarily and concentrate on the games. I love when our teams and individual athletes do well. I love it when they stand up to get their medals while our national anthem plays.
From what I read here on this thread, the true party poopers are those that won’t back their own country at the games, and who misplace their hostility for any given host country onto the athletes who have worked their tails off to get to the level of performance where they could make it to the Olympics. What a bunch of sour grapes with a bad case of misplaced antagonism. Our teams should never be punished for the sins of any host country, nor should our President use the Olympics to make political statements about any host country. They could reciprocate one day against our own country. Keep politics out of it, and stop sounding like the Dems always squawking about human rights abuses all over the world, including their favorite target, the good old USA. Ugh.
mementarily = momentarily, above. Typo.
On the bright side,
since Katie Couric has left NBC,
we won’t have the problem of having to listen to her during the opening ceremonies.
A beer drinkers' game if ever there was one!
I have said it for years Matt Lauer is a commie. It shows.
I can’t believe you think the Olympics were invented for anything but politics ... and business profits.
I’m sure you would have demanded that FDR attend the Berlin Olympics using the same spurious reasoning.
The Hu Jintao clique that rules China today is identical to the Hitlerian clique that ruled Nazi Germany.
To paraphrase you - where is your pride in your country’s founding principles and its pursuit of freedom and liberty for oppressed peoples?
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