THE POLL NUMBERS ON CHINA: 61-29 AGAINST
The Poll Numbers on China: 61-29 Against The Washington debate over the Clinton administration's policy of appeasement—pardon us, "engagement"—toward China is heating up. It will get even warmer as...
...At The Weekly Standard's request, the polling firm Public Opinion Strategies earlier this month reminded 800 Americans that the MFN designation "gives the Chinese full trading privileges with the United States...
...So do our poll respondents "support or oppose continuing most favored nation status with China...
...It will get even warmer as July 1 nears, when Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty after 155 years as a British crown colony...
...Rich people oppose it...
...Some people support MFN "because they believe it will promote democracy and free markets in China and help the U.S...
...Typical of the new NEA are grants like the $20,000 to the Los Angeles Poverty Department...
...Black people oppose it...
...So is the National Endowment for the Arts, which is giving Concerned Citizens for Humanity of Hartford, Connecticut $75,000 for STOPAIDS, "a statewide design project tailored to educate at-risk youth and persons with hearing disabilities on the problem of HIV/AIDS...
...They oppose it on the farm...
...economy...
...Poor people oppose it...
...The Arts Machine_ First it tried the Alec Baldwin gambit—send Hollywood stars to Capitol Hill to do grip 'n' grins with hostile lawmakers...
...White people oppose it...
...But Lindsey did not, as I wrote, testify that he had discussed former Justice Department official Webster Hubbell with Huang...
...The price of the gateways: $125,000...
...The (Further) Descent of Wanniski Jude Wanniski's crackpot crusade to launder the reputation of Louis Farrakhan proceeds apace...
...At the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, U.S...
...They oppose it in the suburbs...
...In other words, everyone opposes MFN...
...Leonard Muhammad [a Farrakhan deputy] called from London and said there had been an agreement not to use old film clips, but I told him the clip you used was useful, in that it cast Min...
...The depth of America's kowtowing to Beijing will be gauged by the reception extended to the Dalai Lama, who is in Washington for three days this week...
...Ph.D.s oppose it...
...Friends of Tibet have urged President Clinton to meet with the Dalai Lama in the Oval Office and hope the Tibetan leader will be invited to address a joint session of Congress, following in the footsteps of such previous Nobel laureates as Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa...
...Then our pollsters posed a question that, if anything, bends over backwards in favor of engagement...
...High-school dropouts oppose it...
...Republicans oppose it...
...To paraphrase a famous humor columnist: We're not making this up...
...Maybe next time, they'll cut out the middleman and just give grants to congressmen directly...
...Instead, the NEA is transforming itself into a full-time social-work agency, just out to do a few good deeds...
...Here's the answer...
...Now the National Endowment for the Arts is stepping up its campaign for survival...
...Perot voters oppose it...
...This LAPD is a theater troupe for the homeless, who, absent the support of the NEA, would no doubt be simply panhandlers, instead of panhandlers who tread the boards...
...The result: The American people oppose MFN, overwhelmingly, by 61 to 29 percent (the other 10 percent don't know or gave no answer...
...Here are excerpts from a "memo to Tim Russert" that Wanniski posted last week on his Internet home page, after Farrakhan appeared on Meet the Press: I thought the interview went very well, displaying a lot of information about Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam that your broad audience had not been aware of...
...And if you thought we were getting too harsh on illegal immigrants, the NEA has a way to smooth over our differences...
...Married people oppose it...
...And there'll be a full boil when Congress takes up the question of China's "most favored nation" status in American trade law...
...The depth of Chinese Communist hatred for the Dalai Lama—spiritual leader of that captive nation and of millions of Buddhists around the world—can be gauged by the virulence of Beijing's propaganda...
...Latino and Mexican-borderland artists will be collaborating on a series of performances called "Gateways: New Creative Collaborations with Mexico...
...He deserves it...
...The Chinese government has let Washington officials know that it would disapprove of any such gesture...
...Others want to suspend MFN "because China limits human rights, sells arms to Iran and pursues an aggressive foreign policy...
...Correction_ Tod Lindberg writes: I want to correct an error in my article on Richard Ben-Veniste in last week's issue...
...With its latest round of grants earlier this month, the NEA has cleverly dropped its open support of the bizarre pornographic works that made it notorious...
...When he was asked if he believed there had been a holocaust, he looked startled at the question, especially after your film clips showed him in '95 tearing into the Wall Street Jews for having financed Nazi Germany and the extermination of the Little Jews...
...That was correct...
...Clinton voters oppose it...
...I've told Farrakhan that at the moment he is the only Truthteller in our country...
...No, it's not a soup kitchen...
...They oppose it in every region of the country...
...So on this issue, President Clinton has a gender gap...
...Wavering legislators will want to know: Where's the public on this nettlesome issue...
...Farrakhan in the light I have come to know him, as a populist...
...I told him after the show that it would cause a lot of confusion to the conventional wisdom...
...Worried about AIDS...
...I noted that the first time the name of John Huang—the Lippo Group official turned Commerce Department official turned DNC fund-raiser—came up in an investigative context was at a June 8, 1996, deposition of Bruce Lindsey before Senate Whitewater committee lawyers...
...And interestingly enough, no one opposes MFN more than women do: by a whopping 45-point margin, 67 to 22 percent...
...The fearsome let's-trade-with-Beijing lobby will twist the arms of congressmen to shut up about human rights and pass MFN...
...Greeting the Dalai Lama Speaking of China, no instance of Beijing's brutality is more striking than its oppression of the Tibetan people...
...Single people oppose it...
...Wanniski, once an influential publicist for supply-side economics and a top adviser to Jack Kemp as recently as last fall, apparently devotes an increasing amount of his time to advising Farrakhan on his TV talk-show appearances...
...Xinhua, the Chinese "news service," last year described the 1989 winner of the Nobel peace prize as an "executioner with honey on his lips and murder in his heart" who used "30 human heads and 80 portions of human blood and flesh each year as sacrificial offerings when he held a religious service in India to curse the People's Liberation war...
...Instead, Lindsey was responding to a question about whom he had spoken with from the Lippo Group since the beginning of the Clinton administration...
...Dole voters oppose it...
...Democrats oppose it...
...They oppose it in the cities...
Vol. 2 • April 1997 • No. 32
