Yes, We Should Snub the Dalai Lama

Ed Morrissey and Michael Crowley agree: it's not appeasement, it's just good foreign policy

Ed Morrissey blogs Hot Air and (as the cliché goes) leans to the right, while Michael Crowley writes for the left-leaning The New Republic, but the two appear to be on the same page when it comes to the Obama administration's snubbing of the Dalai Lama. It's not inexcusable, they both say, to give the Tibetan leader the cold shoulder for once in exchange for cooperation from China. Morrissey even broke ranks with fellow conservatives, arguing that the move did not, in fact, constitute "appeasement."

• Crowley: "Rather than risk alienating China before a summit with Hu Jintao next month, Obama won't meet with the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan visits Washington this week. I can understand if Obama has judged that Chinese cooperation on Iran, the economy and global warming are more important than the Tibetan cause."
• Morrissey: "[It] certainly seems like the Obama administration made a good-faith effort to balance human rights with our need to gain cooperation with China on Iranian nukes. I don't think that snubbing the Dalai Lama will gain us that cooperation, of course, but avoiding a deliberate diplomatic provocation hardly counts as appeasement. In this case, I'd say that the Obama administration got it right, and that American interests trump a photo op with the Dalai Lama."