Do you suppose China is having second thoughts about that whole ‘Olympics’ idea?

[Update: A new Zogby poll finds that 70% of likely voters believe the IOC was wrong to award the Olympics to China, and 48% believe that “U.S. political officials should not attend the opening ceremony due to China’s poor human rights record.”

Dissatisfaction with the IOC’s choice is strong across the political spectrum, with 70% of Democrats and Republicans, and 68% of political independents who said they disagree with the decision to have China host the summer games. A Zogby Interactive poll conducted in May 2007 found 44% had a favorable opinion of the IOC’s decision to award the 2008 Summer Olympic Games to China, while 39% viewed the decision unfavorably. [Zogby news release]

It’s Zogby, so take it with a grain of salt. Thanks to a reader for sending.]

I think it is now safe to declare that the Beijing Olympics will be a colossal P.R. disaster for the ChiComs:

Paris’ Olympic torch relay descended into chaos Monday, with protesters scaling the Eiffel Tower, grabbing for the flame and forcing security officials to repeatedly snuff out the torch and transport it by bus past demonstrators yelling “Free Tibet!”

The relentless anti-Chinese demonstrations ignited across the capital with unexpected power and ingenuity, foiling 3,000 police officers deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and even inline skates. Chinese organizers finally gave up on the relay, canceling the last third of what China had hoped would be a joyous jog by torch-bearing VIPs past some of Paris’ most famous landmarks.

Thousands of protesters slowed the relay to a stop-start crawl, with impassioned displays of anger over China’s human rights record, its grip on Tibet and support for Sudan despite years of bloodshed in Darfur. Five times, the Chinese officials in dark glasses and tracksuits who guard the torch extinguished it and retreated to the safety of a bus — the last time emerging only after the vehicle drove within 15 feet of the final stop, a track and field stadium. A torchbearer then ran the final steps inside. Outside, a few French activists supporting Tibet had a fist-fight with pro-Chinese demonstrators. The French activists spat on them and shouted, “Fascists!” [AP]

If only the Pentagon could identify the mysterious surrender-inducing pheromone in the Parisian air that saps the fighting spirit of uniformed personnel, to include Red Chinese goons in blue-and-white track suits. The French protestors, on the other hand, put up a terrific fight. They hoisted banners on the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame Cathedral, and booed “trucks emblazoned with the names of Olympic corporate sponsors.” One intreptid group of 300 blocked the torch’s route; the police had to use tear gas on them.

The International Olympic Committee is now considering whether it should even bother with San Francisco. Speaking of corporate sponsors, NBC says they’re still buying ads, but I can’t imagine that sponsors will be able to remain untarnished.

In San Francisco, where the torch is due to arrive Wednesday, three protesters wearing harnesses and helmets climbed up the Golden Gate Bridge and tied the Tibetan flag and two banners to its cables. The banners read “One World One Dream. Free Tibet” and “Free Tibet.”

Gee, why not take a jog over the Bay Bridge and through the postcard village of Berkeley?

I have to say that I’m in agreement with Joshua Foust here. There are plenty of good reasons to protest the Chinese regime. Tibet and Darfur are two good reasons; my only regret is that plenty of other good reasons are being bypassed by the publicity. I’ve often written about Chinese brutality toward North Korean refugees, but let’s not forget Chinese brutality toward the Chinese people, either. None of these problems can possibly be solved until China has a government that reflects — rather than manipulates and controls — the will of its people.

The fact that the Chinese have become accomplished manipulators does not lend them any more legitimacy than it lent to Goebbels. And when it comes to telling the Big Lie, the Chinese have escalated. Last week, for example, the Chinese accused Tibetans of forming suicide squads. They produced no evidence to support that claim, and I have no means of finding evidence to refute it, but I’m calling bullshit until I see proof that doesn’t look staged. Elsewhere, Tibetan activists say the Chinese are forcing Tibetan monks to take part in staged demonstrations. This seems more plausible than the accusations the ChiComs are throwing around, but the evidence is all hearsay, and not very specific. Watch and decide for yourself.

Remarkably, the protests in Tibet go on. Predictably, the Chinese respond with brutal force:

Chinese paramilitary police killed eight people and wounded dozens more when they fired on a protest by several hundred Tibetan monks and villagers, The Times has been told. The protesters were enraged by a government inspection team trying to confiscate pictures of the Dalai Lama.

The clash, one of the bloodiest since Tibetan protests against China erupted last month, occurred in the village of Donggu, high in the mountains of Sichuan province near the border with Tibet, after government officials entered the sprawling ancient hillside monastery of Tongkor. They searched the room of every monk, confiscating all mobile phones as well as the pictures. The monastery’s website (www.donggusi.com) says that it is home to 350 monks. [Times Online]

The Tibetans will go down fighting. But if the Chinese regime survives for two more decades, they will go down just the same.

And finally, I cannot neglect to mention that UNICEF has decided not to sponsor a torch run through the capital of a regime that, you know, gasses kids and kills babies:

The United Nations decided in late March to pull out of the Olympic torch run in North Korea, the UN children’s agency said on Monday. UNICEF, had been asked by the International Olympic Committee to provide runners for the torch relay in North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, and initially accepted, UNICEF spokesman Christopher de Bono said. But after discussions among all the UN agencies in Pyongyang, the UN decided to withdraw from the run, he said. [….]

“There was some discussion among UN agencies with headquarters in Pyongyang and we decided not to go ahead with it because our participation and our partnership with the International Olympic Committee is to raise awareness of the situation of children, and we’re not convinced that our participation would advance that aim,” de Bono said. [AP]

It probably assumes too much to believe that the U.N. saw the jarring moral clash this would have meant. Perhaps they consulted with U.N. aid workers and thought a famine might be a bad time for such frivolous displays. Or, they might have concluded that the kind of “awareness” that the Olympic torch runs seem to be attracting isn’t the kind anyone needs.

I’m struck by how much talent the activists for Darfur and Tibet have, that activists for the North Korean people still need.