One of the few memorable lines in Barack Obama’s inaugural address, was a promise to “those who cling to power through corruption or deceit and the silencing of dissent … we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Well, that was before the $787 billion “stimulus” package, which is projected to push the FY 2009 deficit to a record $1.75 trillion - 12.3 percent of the economy, the highest share of the GDP ever since 1945. Now, America’s hand is indeed extended, but it’s not to offer help but to beg for it.

“US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton … urged China to keep buying US debt as she wrapped up her first overseas trip, during which she agreed to work closely with Beijing on the financial crisis,” reports Agence France-Presse:

In Beijing, she called on authorities in Beijing to continue buying US Treasuries, saying it would help jumpstart the flagging US economy and stimulate imports of Chinese goods. …

Clinton had sought to focus on economic and environmental issues in Beijing, saying Washington's concerns about the human rights situation in China should not be a distraction from those vital matters. …

[W]hile taping an interview on a Chinese talk show, she focused on the need for China to help finance the massive 787-billion-dollar US economic stimulus plan by continuing to buy US Treasuries.

"Because our economies are so intertwined the Chinese know that in order to start exporting again to its biggest market, the United States had to take some very drastic measures with this stimulus package," Clinton said. …

Clinton added: "The US needs the investment in Treasury bonds to shore up its economy to continue to buy Chinese products." …

China is the top holder of US Treasury bills, with 696.2 billion dollars worth of the securities in December followed by Japan with 578.3 billion dollars, according to the latest official data from Washington.  

The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reports that Clinton’s “blunt and unadorned style of diplomacy” throughout Asia “crossed taboo lines in international diplomacy”:

U.S. officials generally do not say their sanctions have failed, or speculate about the future government of another country, or suggest that a carefully watched human rights dialogue is largely a farce. …

Before her meetings in Beijing, for instance, Clinton said she would raise human rights issues with Chinese officials, "but we pretty much know what they're going to say."

Clinton's comments have stirred outrage in the human rights community, where she was viewed as a hero for having confronted the Chinese government in 1995 over its record. Activists say that without public, sustained international pressure on human rights issues, nothing will change in China.

Clinton says she does not understand the fuss. In her view, speaking clearly - and not obfuscating through diplomatic artifice - helps enhance the policy, rather than undermine it.

In foreign policy circles, Clinton's remarks on human rights have stirred consternation that she is giving up possible leverage with China before any dialogue has begun. Others say that she is inviting criticism from Capitol Hill and human rights groups that undermines her ability as a diplomat.

The WaPo chides Clinton for being misguided in her approach:

By publicly stating its objection to the imprisonment of peaceful dissidents or the crushing of opposition in places such as Tibet, the United States reinforces the principle that such practices are unacceptable anywhere in the world. It gives hope to those who are bravely fighting for change and causes average Chinese to question their government. It also can produce results - as has been demonstrated time and again when Chinese political prisoners have been released thanks to American pressure.

Ms. Clinton's suggestion that U.S. advocacy for human rights might "interfere" with cooperation on other issues is equally misguided. Over many years China has proved ready to work with the United States on issues where it sees an interest in doing so, regardless of disputes over human rights.

But while noting that “Amnesty International is ‘extremely disappointed,’ and rightly so,” one of the paper’s columnists, Anne Applebaum writes, “while I sympathize with these critics, I find I increasingly don't care what Hillary Clinton says about human rights to the leaders of China” because the U.S. record on human rights is largely empty talk:  

Clinton is right; these exchanges have become ritualized. I also don't care what she says about human rights to the leaders of Iran, Zimbabwe or North Korea, if those words will have no meaning in practice.

Grandiloquent human rights speeches that amount to nothing have been a hallmark of American foreign policy since at least 1956, when we didn't come to the aid of Hungarians taking part in a rebellion we helped incite. Fifty years of broken promises is quite enough, and if we're abandoning that habit now, good riddance.

U.S. News & World Report columnist Michael Barone agrees with Applebaum – but to a point:

Now it can be said in defense of Clinton's remarks that previous administrations of both parties, from the time of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, have given human rights at best a subordinate place in their dealings with China. And that our past calls for China to observe human rights have been met for the most part with stony silence and acts of defiance. And that the stricken American economy at this point is in need of continued Chinese purchases of Treasury bonds.

Still, for anyone with knowledge of American foreign policy over the last four decades, Clinton's remarks were jarring. It is one thing not to press a tyranny very hard on human rights; it is another thing to come out and say you're not going to raise the issue at all. It is a kind of unilateral moral disarmament.

Barone points out that once-upon-a-time, liberals “complained that the United States sided with too many tyrannies in the Cold War …  [b]ut now they seem to have done so in the desire to repudiate root and branch every policy espoused by George W. Bush.” He adds: “a stony indifference to the freedom of others is not a very liberal - not a very generous, not a very attractive - thing.”  

One Definition Of “Bad Economy”

Here’s the lede of a New York Times article on the “sense of disconnect between the projections by the White House and the grim realities of everyday American life”:

The economy is spiraling down at an accelerating pace, threatening to undermine the Obama administration’s spending plans, which anticipate vigorous rates of growth in years to come. [Emphasis, The Stiletto.]

How dare the economy threaten to undermine Obama’s spending plan? Bad, bad economy!

Snowy Day Fun

The Washington Post has kicked off its third annual Peeps Diorama Contest. Winners will be selected amongst entries submitted by people who don’t work for the WaPo, are at least 13 years old, and live in the District of Columbia, MD or VA. The winner gets a $100 AmEx gift card; four runners-up, a $50 gift card each. Click here for the rules and instructions.