Bush to Hu: "Huh?"

China's president, Hu Jintao, wanted his Bush White House visit to be a show of respect. He wanted it to be a full state visit. But in reality, China already has everything it wants. The Chinese are getting all the oil they want. They're expanding their military capacity to the greatest it has ever been. They hold the world's market on basic consumer goods. They are disrupting the world economic system by keeping the yuan undervalued. And to top it off, they are stealing the good middle-class, industrial jobs that keep America running.

Hu wanted the Bush administration to ignore its human rights violations. Surely there's no reason to focus on continued crackdowns in Tibet and against the Falun Gong. Why bring up the unpleasant images and slave labor and prison labor. There's no reason to talk about child labor.

Hu just wanted the United States to roll out the red carpet for flattering televised images back home. At least he didn't get that, thanks to the Falun Gong protester who interrupted his speech.

But what did Americans get out of the gaffe-filled visit? Nothing, zippo, zero. But we knew that from the start. More surprisingly, even President Bush's business cronies denounced the visit as a flop.

It's time to take the "For Sale" sign off of the White House. It's time to stand up to China. But don't hold your breath. The track record isn't pretty.

The Bush administration tried to give away American port operations to oil baron buddies in the Middle East. And Bush sold out Americans by allowing Marine One to be built by a foreign conglomerate -- a little payback to Great Britain and Italy for support for the Iraq war.

What you can bet didn't come up during Hu's White House visit was the artificially low yuan currency that puts America at a major disadvantage. There will be no explanation for why Bush sits back as the trade deficit with China soars to a record $203 billion. Don't expect Bush to take on the unconscionable working conditions in Chinese factories, where workers are paid just pennies for their slave labor.

Despite the embarrassment from the protester, this was an easy pass for Hu, who jails journalists, suppresses religious freedom and censors the Internet. Even if Bush raised these issues with Hu in private -- and you know he didn't -- there's no evidence that he's actually pressing hard enough. Hu refused to make concessions on any human rights cases that Bush brought up in September.

In other words, Bush is giving China access to American jobs and investment money, plus the public relations bonus of a White House visit -- all while shrinking from a tough fight.

Not that we should be surprised. We learned how out of touch the Bush administration is when Treasury Secretary John Snow said outsourcing good-paying American jobs is good for the economy. "There can't be any doubt about the fact that trade makes the economy stronger," Snow said. "You can outsource a lot of activities and get them done just as well, or better, at a lower cost."

Keep shaking your head, there's more.

Bush himself said much the same thing this week, speaking in Tuskegee. Only he went further, saying if Americans can't compete against slave laborers in other countries, that's just too bad. Find new jobs -- at Wal-Mart.

Too bad our president doesn't care about the 1.5 million jobs lost to China between 1989 and 2003.

And what is Bush's response to Hu? How about, "Huh?"