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Conservatives Bash Bush Over China
W A S H I N G T O N, April 9 -- While Democrats have remained relatively muted in their criticisms of the Bush administration's handling of the China spy plane standoff, conservatives are taking some hard jabs at their new commander-in-chief.
In an unusually harsh four-page editorial hitting newstands Monday, the conservative Weekly Standard magazine blasts the White House in a diatribe headlined "A National Humiliation." Calling President Bush weak in his handling of the Sino standoff, the Standard takes particular aim at Secretary of State Colin Powell, condemning his expressions of "regret" as a policy that caves in to the Chinese just when the the White House should have taken a more hard-line approach.
The editorial, co-written by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, was widely passed around Washington over the weekend and left Bush officials frothing.
Former Republican administration officials are even harsher in their judgment of the new White House team, quietly dismissing national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, Powell and other senior officials for their "complete lack of knowledge when it comes to China" and slamming the "desperation" of Powell's approach.
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Publicly, Powell dismissed the criticism as "absurd."
Privately, Bush administration officials were even more firm. One senior Bush official told ABCNEWS, "The editorial is just bulls--t. The conservative critics are going to be proven wrong when the crew comes out of this safely and we hope very soon, with the flights not restricted, with our China policy still intact and with the U.S. still firmly on the side of security in the region."
The official also contends that critics are ignoring the reality of what is happening behind the scenes in negotiations vs. what White House officials are saying publicly.
"They [critics] are just assuming we are giving away the store to China, but I can tell you that it is a very different scenario behind the scene. We say to them 'you want to threaten war with China, fine. But don't do it while we have 24 airmen being held.' That, in our opinion, is just complete bulls--t."
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