Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Crotchety Tiger, Huffy Dragon

Friday, April 6, 2001

All right. This Chinese thing. First of all the Chinese pilot's name was Wang Wei - pronounced, I'm told, "Wong Way." Of course, for all I know it could be pronounced "Douglas Corrigan."

Here's a suggestion: Have the U.S. Customs service examine every single item coming into every single U.S. port from any place in China. I don't mean check the bills of lading. I mean look at every tee shirt, every pair of sneakers, every pair of shorts, every Beanie Baby - everything with a Swoosh or a picture of Kathy Lee Gifford.

We don't have to deliberately slow anything down. We merely need to ensure the items being imported for sale to the American consumer can, indeed, be washed in warm water and tumbled dry. What's the problem?

The Chinese government, is acting like - the Chinese Government. According to the "China Daily," when asked whether the U.S. crewmembers were being questioned, a spokesman said, "They have caused this air collision incident and they also entered illegally into China's airspace. It is fully natural for Chinese authorities to question them about this incident."

Let's see. 22-or so cryptologists and analysts sitting in the back of a four-engine propeller-driven aircraft caused a high-performance jet to smash into it. Oh, wait. Maybe the Chinese want to find out if any of the U.S. crew had their cell phone NOT turned to the off position after the forward door had been closed.

What do the Chinese want more than anything in the world? They want the 2008 Olympic Games to be held in Beijing. This will be solved with the appropriate public diplomatic niceties. But the real deal will be our promise to be very, very strong supporters of their bid, which won't be a too tough for us to do. After all, one of the other major bidders is � France.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George W. Bush have said they "regret" the loss of the Chinese pilot, but will not apologize for it.

So, what's the difference between regret and apology? According to Roget's Thesaurus regret is listed as: "To feel or express sorrow for: deplore, repent, rue."

Apologize is listed as: "A statement OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT (emphasis mine) expressing regret or asking pardon."

Speaking of expressing regret, how about old hoss Dan Rather? A piece in Wednesday's Washington Post by Howard Kurtz, detailed an appearance by Rather at a fundraiser in Austin, Texas for the Travis County Democratic party. The ticket price was as much as $1,000.

Originally, according to the Kurtz piece, "The Texas native stopped short of calling his appearance a mistake or saying he would not have attended had he known in advance that he was being used to raise money."

But by Wednesday evening Rather had retreated some saying, "I made an embarrassing and regrettable error in judgment by going to this event,'' Rather said in a statement. "It was a serious mistake, which I acknowledge."

See? Rather got it all in there. "Regrettable" AND "acknowledge."

Bill Clinton on a rope line again! And other good stuff on the Secret Decoder Ring.

The funniest thing anyone has said about the Rather fundraiser was this statement by CBS spokesperson Sandy Genelius: "Obviously our standards don't allow correspondents to participate in political party fund-raisers. No one believes in this and upholds it more fervently than Dan Rather."

Oh, Sandy? Apparently EVERYBODY believes in and upholds that standard more fervently than Dan Rather.

One wonders how often this has happened. Let's ask him: Hey, Dan? What's the frequency? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Here's another Dandy question: That money that was donated at that fundraiser? That wouldn't have been soft money, would it? Because we know no one believes in campaign finance reform more fervently than Dan Rather.

Here's some good news about the Nasdaq sitting below 1800. Yesterday the index rose 146 points. When the Nasdaq was around 5000 that would have been only about a three percent increase. But at 1800, it was an increase of almost nine percent.

This is called spin.

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