I must say the Chinese put on one hell of a opening ceremony. I was simply speechless, best opening ceremony I have ever seen. Given that, I can't see how the anthem could so easily be messed up. They have been doing things to irritate the US presidential delegation.  I can see it from both perspectives. From Chinese perspective Bush is pulling a Borat and is in their house at their most prime moment being critical. From Bush's perspective he does have his pride and is trying his best to be critical yet not totally offend China since the people that pull his puppet strings have have more invested in China than in any other country. I would say Bush is to be held more at fault since he could have stayed away entirely. 

What would happen if the Chinese arrested Bush? Would America really want to risk war and spill blood just to get a lame duck president back?  

I can't think of any reason why the Chineses would ever dare to pull such a stunt like arresting Bush.  If they did, however, it would be an absolute act of war against the United States, and I can guarantee that Vice President Cheney would tell the Chinese in no uncertain terms that we would go to war if they did not release our president.  In fact, only invasion or an actual military attack on our mainland would be a greater provacation. 

 

Your last question is patently absurd and betrays your anti-Bush bias, but I'm ashamed to say that if Bush were held hostage by the Chinese, there would be some in the United States that would make the argument that saving Bush isn't worth going to war over, even if he is our President.  Most politicians in this country wouldn't say that publicly because they know the stakes, but I dare say a lot of Hollywood, left-wing loon Bush haters would.  Their hatred of President Bush is stronger than their sense of patriotism and grasp of world politics.  If nations were allowed to arrest and prosecute visiting world leaders the immediate consequence would be that world leaders would stop travelling outside their countries' borders, which would cripple diplomacy and set it back hundreds of years.  World leaders have to be able to travel abroad secure in the knowledge that they enjoy full diplomatic immunity from arrest.  Many dictators and tyrants have visited the United Nations in New York (Castro, Chavez, Arafat, et al.,) and all did so without fear of being arrested. 

 

As for your initial comments, Bush was presented with a lose-lose scenario as far as the Olympics were concerned.  If he went to China he was going to be criticized because his attendance legitimizes China and ignores their human rights violations, but had he chose to make a political statement and stayed away he would have enraged and insulted the Chinese.  Such a decision would have had long range political and economic reprecussions way out of proportion to what would have amounted to a symbolic gesture on our part had Bush stayed home.  So Bush decided to go to China to attend the first few days of the games, and of course his critics are taking advantage of any opportunity to criticize him.  I bet no other President in history has been faced with so many "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations.  Really, people, do you actually think that everything Bush does is wrong? 

 

On a side note, I can't believe the botched play of our national anthem hasn't even been mentioned in the news.  I refuse to believe it was a simple mistake.  That has got to be the most widely known anthem in the world, so how some technician could repeat part of the first stanza twice and then cut the anthem short is beyond me. 

I am not a fan of Cheney by any means but I wouldn't start a war with a man who shot his friend in the face and got an apology for it.

 

Besides, I'm sure somewhere in the dark recesses of war planning there is a directive to consider a sitting President who has been kidnapped by a major power to be a very disposable asset and probably THE primary target just to keep them quiet.  That is the beauty of our order of succession.