Pun Salad

Early-AM power failure has screwed up my schedule today, sorry. Just a couple things, both about the same general topic :

• David Harsanyi at the Federalist points out that LeBron Jame$ Is A Coward.

  NBA superstar LeBron James says Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey was “misinformed” and “wasn’t educated on the situation at hand” when he tweeted in support of Hong Kong’s freedom demonstrations. Morey’s sin was sharing an image of a slogan that read, “Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” Even though the GM, regrettably, deleted his tweet, one strongly suspects his grasp of China— where the state is running “re-education” camps filled with Uyghurs—is considerably stronger than any of the NBA’s leading apologists.

  Only last year, James, a purported champion of social justice, came out in support of former quarterback Colin Kaepernick with the vacuous platitude, “I stand with anyone who believes in change.” Anyone? Of course, LeBron’s stand, as with most acts of pretend celebrity bravery, resulted in hosannas being thrown at him by the press, and, more importantly, never costing him a penny.

  I'm old enough to remember when decent folk united in showering apartheid-era South Africa with opprobrium, and boycotts. And eventually, … well, at least it's different nowadays.

  Why no equivalent outrage at China? Is it all because of the Benjamins, LeBron?

  ---

• At National Review, Jim Geraghty piles on: The President and the NBA Have Turned Their Backs on Hong Kong.

  And no, our president is no better and is in fact even more shameful, considering the traditional role of the President of the United States in standing up for American values. No one’s asking the president to nuke Beijing or deploy troops to Hong Kong. Just stand up for what’s right and denounce the abuse of innocent people, instead of insisting that a new trade deal will resolve the situation.

  In case you missed it, our president shrugged and declared, “I think great progress has been made by China in Hong Kong. I’ve been watching, and I actually told the vice premier, it really has toned down a lot from the initial days of a couple of months ago, when I saw a lot of people and I see far fewer now.” [Note: Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in central Hong Kong Monday night.] “We were discussing it, and I think that’s going to take care of itself. I think this [U.S.-China trade] deal is a great deal for the people of Hong Kong to see what happened. I think this is a very positive thing for Hong Kong. But it really has — the escalation, it really has de-escalated a lot, and we were discussing it.”

  I try not to be disgusted, but these days, on this topic, it's impossible.