Hu is the president of China?

I was happy to hear on Thursday that a Chinese woman had disrupted the joint press conference between President George W. Bush and President of China Hu Jintao. I was irritated by the later news that President Bush had apologized for the incident. China is not an open society, but the U.S. is. It's unamerican to try to protect a foreign head of state from the discontent of his own people.

I was irritated to see the staged shows of friendship that I photographed later that day along Connecticut Avenue. I'm confident this was arrainged by the Chinese embassy to create a backdrop for Chinese television showing the appearence of American support for the Communist Party's rule of China. Judging from President Bush's eagerness to protect President Hu from being exposed to the grievances of protesters, perhaps the U.S. does support Communist Party rule there.