Propaganda Wars, #1 Jude Wanniski April 12, 1999

Memo To: Sen. Fred Thompson [R-TN]
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Bad China, Bad!

I note another Fred, Barnes of The Weekly Standard, has decided the People's Republic of China is guilty on all counts, even before he knows all the counts. He was on FoxNews Sunday with Tony Snow yesterday, pronouncing the ratfink Chinese Commies guilty of stealing our best, Grade A nuclear secrets. An ace reporter, he read all about it in the NYTimes, which has never actually said the ratfink reds definitely, positively filched our best stuff. I also spotted you on CNN yesterday. You were being reminded that you promised a breathlessly awaiting world definite proof that yellow men with red stars on their epaulets slipped some of that hard currency they got by running a $57 billion trade surplus with the USA into the coffers of the Democratic National Committee. In exchange, they would presumably get favorable treatment from Bill Clinton vis a vis their application to the World Trade Organization. It could not have been in exchange for nuclear secrets, because Fred Barnes, ace reporter, assures us the ratfinks had already swiped our best stuff. (He read about it in the NYT.) Anyway, you insisted you never promised your committee would reveal all to a breathlessly awaiting world, but maybe the news would get out if the Clinton administration allowed a certain report, now under heavy guard, to be released by Rep. Chris Cox, a California Republican who believes the ratfink Red Commies are secretly planning to march down Sunset Boulevard, flags flying, when the time is right.

Now it is clear that PRC Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, who says his government didn't steal any of our secrets and didn't slip any cash to the DNC, is not to be trusted. Yes, he tells jokes and smiles and laughs a lot. But Fred B. is surely right that any day now he will lead human waves of Chinese marines ashore at Malibu and Zuma beaches, capturing our best surfers before moving on to the orange groves around Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga to pick them clean.

I'm counting on you, Senator Fred, to deliver the evidence that the head of foreign intelligence in China did in fact meet secretly at a McDonald's in Beijing with Johnnie Huang, close friend of Al (Buddhist) Gore, to hand over $300,000 in cash, which enabled Bill Clinton to beat Bob Dole in 1996. While you are at it, please deliver the evidence that a yellow fellow who worked at Los Alamos nuclear labs in New Mexico for 26 years met with his counterpart at that same McDonald's in Beijing with a secret design for miniature atomic bombs! No sooner had he been discovered as a SPY by the NYTimes than the other Fred, Barnes, sought fit to praise Energy Secretary Bill Richardson for firing the yellow fellow. Richardson is said to have a photograph of the Los Alamos guy entering that McDonald's restaurant, which should be enough to get him onto death row, but our criminal laws are so weak that he has gone Scot Free (along with Bill Clinton, who we all agree committed multiple felonies in a little room next to the Oval Office.)

The other Fred, Barnes, thinks we might as well nuke China now, while we still have the edge, in order to prevent them from further violations of human rights, including permission for third-trimester abortions. (You must have heard that Gary Bauer, who is running for the presidential nomination of your party, plans to round up all Americans with Chinese surnames, including Dan Quayle, and have them spend the duration of the war in parochial schools.) Too bad, Senator, you could not come up with the goods on the ratfink Chicoms, or you would be the frontrunner instead of George W. Bush, whose lips are sealed.