The audacity of [CENSORED]

Wed, 01/21/2009 - 2:04pm

Chinese TV viewers got a truncated version of Barack Obama's inaugural address yesterday thanks to some skittish censors at the country state-run TV network:

The news channel of state broadcaster China Central Television broadcast the speech live early Wednesday local time, but appeared caught off-guard by Obama's reference to how earlier generations of Americans had "faced down fascism and communism."

The audio quickly faded out from Obama's speech and cameras cut back to the studio anchor, who seemed flustered for a second before turning to ask a U.S.-based CCTV reporter what challenges the president faces in turning around the economy.

Here's video of the cutaway from the invaluable Danwei.org:

 

Xinhua's Chinese translation of the speech also ommitted the reference to Communism as well as the section where Obama said that "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history."

So much for "unclenching your fist."

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Americans faced down communism?

by Don Bacon on Thu, 01/22/2009 - 12:30am

Like in Vietnam, for example? Oh, by the way, President Clinton went to Communist Vietnam in 2000 and Bush paid Vietnam a four-day visit in 2006 where he affirmed that he would do his utmost to continue strengthen Vietnam-US bilateral relations.

Various US presidents have visited Communist Chine, starting with Nixon and most recently Bush. In fact President Obama's half-brother recently performed in China, playing the piano in a fund-raiser.

Apparently Obama will not maintain the recent tradition, nor does he know how to avoid insulting other countries, obviously. Perhaps he'll learn, on-the-job.

This Is A Test Comment

by salman22 on Thu, 01/22/2009 - 5:01am

This is a TEST Comment
Salman Khan
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