Obama Administration Commiserates With China About 'Human Rights Violations' in Arizona

In a "candid and constructive" human rights dialogue with officials from the People’s Republic of China last week, Obama administration officials brought up Arizona's new immigration-enforcement law, telling the Chinese Communists it was an example of a “troubling trend” in the United States and an indication of “discrimination or potential discrimination” in American society.

Ironically, the State Department’s most recent report on human rights in China indicates that the government there restricts the internal travel of its own citizens.

The human rights talks, held at various locations in Washington last week, focused on issues that both countries are dealing with, State Department Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner told a press briefing on Friday.

Asked by a reporter if the Arizona law came up in the discussions, Posner said it did--and it was U.S. officials, not the Chinese, who brought it up.

"We brought it up early and often," Posner told reporters on Friday. "It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination, and that these are issues very much being debated in our own society," Posner said. The Chinese did not raise any concerns about Chinese people visiting Arizona, Posner added.

Posner's comments prompted the New York Post to editorialize on Tuesday that the Obama administration is once again bashing America on the world stage.

"China is one of the most flagrant violators of human rights on the planet, and for the Obama administration even to hint that America is on the same plane is despicable," the Post wrote on Tuesday.

On Fox News Tuesday morning, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley--trying to defend Posner’s comments – was asked if he had read the ten-page Arizona law. He said he has not read it, although he did criticize it.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who is weighing a constitutional challenge to the law, admitted last week that he has not read it; and Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday told a Senate panel that she had not read the law, either.

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