http://www.prudenpolitics.com/index.php/pruden/full_column/nary_kiss_nor_hug_for_the_blind_man
Barack Obama says he agrees with Abraham Lincoln (you could ask him) that America is “the exceptional nation,” a nation unique in a world of moral squalor, a beacon of hope for the “tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” But sometimes cold pragmatism demands the exceptional nation make exceptions.
This was apparently the message sent to Chen Guangcheng, the blind human-rights hero who fled for his life to the American embassy in Beijing. He didn’t ask for asylum, exactly, but he was desperate for help. A blind man who travels 400 miles, evading cops and soldiers to reach the American embassy, fits the definition of desperate. But after six days of negotiations between American diplomats and the Chinese government a deal was struck, and Mr. Chen left the embassy. To the surprise only of the Americans, Mr. Chen said Thursday that the Chinese were not living up to the agreement.
The specifics of the deal are leaking slowly, and outsiders can’t know for sure exactly what’s going down. The U.S. State Department says it did nothing to force Mr. Chen to leave the embassy, which is something the Chinese government devoutly wanted. But the State Department is stuck with the reputation for weakness, vacillation, hesitation, mendacity and shilly-shallying it has earned over the years, so most of us take the account of friends of Mr. Chen as the straighter goods.