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This blog has been illustrating how Obama is continuing Bush’s policies. This time however we have a departure.

As WaPo reports

For the first time since 1991, the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington this week and not meet with the president.

and

George W. Bush became the first sitting president to meet with him publicly, at a ceremony at the Capitol in which he awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’s highest civilian award.

You’d think our celebrity president would be happy to get photographed with the Dalai Lama. Think again:

In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama’s summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month

Maybe there would be too many celebrities in one room.

Of course the weaseling is going on, as with everything

A senior administration official denied that the Dalai Lama had sought a meeting with Obama in October and “instead he would like to see him in December.” He said it was “counter-factual” to assume that a meeting had been postponed. The official briefed a reporter on the condition that his name not be used.

Counterfactual? That’s a new one on me.

But I recognize this comment as a pattern

“We’ve got the classic case of a Western government yet again conceding to Chinese pressure that is imaginary long after that Chinese pressure has ceased to exist,”

In dealing with other issues, such as healthcare: when in doubt, give in