Does the president normally do all that? (Seriously, I'd never seen or heard of a president actually coming down from the stands to congratulate the athletes who won nor to offer support for the athletes who didn't win.)


Well, I suppose doing that might increase the audience size a bit, at least in those countries that didn't refuse to air the games because of it. :lol:

You don't consider it extreme for the Chinese government to be slaughtering Tibetan protesters in the streets? This happened between them being awarded the Games and now. Is it going to take an even greater tragedy before it's extreme enough to act on?

I think some kind of gesture of protest is warranted since the Chinese are exploiting the whole situation knowing the IOC is too spineless to deal with it themselves.

I agree some kind of gesture is warranted, but not in the aspect of boycotting the Olympics. This is a political issue, and should be handled as such. This is not a reason worth punishing athletes who've worked their entire lives to get to this point. Which is seriously no lie when it comes to China's Gymnastics Program. Channel surfing one day and found this show, I think it was called Taboo. Anyway, it was about how Chinese families, who are only allowed to have one child, are sometimes chosen to send their children to live at a Gymnastics training facility which honestly reminded me of Basic Training. The kids live their day to day lives on the same schedule that the Military keeps recruits on to condition them for war, class in the morning, workouts, training, sleep. They see their families once a month. And the kids are put through the most grueling workouts I've ever seen.

Anyway, more to the point, these kids are chosen at the age where they would normally go to kindergarten, and spirited away to some training facility to live and breathe gymnastics. Most of them never even see the Olympics, but they stay at this school until the age of 18 none the less.

Me? Why yes, I do. I have believed Tibet should be free for decades. I am also against the "One China" policy and wrote letters to my senators and congressman after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In my opinion we should have never opened up trade to them with "Most Favored Nation" status, nor allowed them to manipulate their currency without penalty, conterfeit our goods, ignore IP…
…they never should have gotten the Olypics to begin with.

I am not however in the position that a president is in. We have massive debt and major trade with the Communist Chinese. It is a decision that needs to be made with care and planning. Is this the time to possibly provoke them into economic retaliation against our interests? Would they react (other then propaganda)? And a big question; would it do any good to actually protest their actions in this manner?

I don't have the information to make those decisions. I am very thankful that I don't have to do so.