House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flew to Oslo to be present at the Nobel Prize Ceremony today where an empty chair sat on the stage where the Nobel laureate, Liu Xiaobo, was prevented from attending by the Chinese regime.
Pelosi's presence should be praised by left and right alike: The Communist Chinese regime is a threat, a large threat, to what all Americans value most: our civil liberties.
Indeed, conservatives must be especially threatened by the Chinese regime's so-far success at decoupling economic reforms from political change. Their policies are a direct threat to what has been a staple of GOP foreign policy since the Reagan years, the belief that economic liberalization inevitably results in political liberalization. But, of course, I am not holding my breathe for the encomiums for the Speaker.
