White House: Apologizing to China about Arizona?

Conversative bloggers are outraged by the news that American diplomats cited Arizona's tough new immigration law as an example of homegrown "discrimination" while holding human-rights talks with Chinese officials. But Jon Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to China and Utah's former Republican governor, said holding open discussions — without glossing over problems in either country — is key to improving relations with Beijing. Is this good diplomacy, or are U.S. representatives kowtowing to tyrants? (Watch Bill O'Reilly slam the White House for apologizing for Arizona.)

Why bash America? It's "unfreakingbelievable, even for the Obama administration" to say we're sorry that a U.S. state has decided to finally start enforcing our immigration laws, says John Hinderaker in Power Line. Especially when dealing with China, a country that "murdered millions of its citizens who opposed the government's Communist policies and allows most of its people little or no freedom."

"Apologizing for Arizona"

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Honesty is the best policy: If we want to call ourselves "the land of the free, the home of the brave," we have to act like we mean it, says Steven Levingston in The Washington Post. Arizona's law makes it a crime to be an "illegal alien," and orders police to arrest anyone they suspect might be here without proper papers. In a border state like Arizona, that "translates into racial apartheid" against Hispanics.

"Immigration's strain on democracy"

Good idea, bad execution: The Obama administration's "humility, apparently," was meant as a way to "ease into a discussion of China's human-rights record," says Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic, but conservative outrage is not off the mark. You don't have to be a right-winger to see that "comparing China's regular and brutal and unapologetic detention of political dissidents to the temporary detention of citizens caught without papers" is a "tough case to make."

"Palin calls Huntsman out"