This summer, President George W. Bush will smile while jaunting up the stairs to Air Force One - his laughable presidency all but over - with not a care in the world.

For 13 hours, he'll lie on a couch in the airplane, drink pomegranate-flavored water and watch reruns of Texas Rangers games from the glory days of Nolan Ryan and Jose Canseco

Eventually, he'll land in Beijing, China, for the 2008 Summer Olympics. He'll pose and smile for photos with great Chinese leaders.

You'll definitely read about it in the newspaper, and so will people just like you all over the world; and you'll probably feel pretty good when you do. Like a bottle of cheap gin the whole globe can pass around, the Olympics somehow make it okay to forget for a little while.

This is helpful for most of us, but somewhat unfortunate for the Tibetan people, whose struggle against occupation has gone on for nearly 60 years

In 1951, the Chinese government annexed Tibet and declared it part of China. In 1959, an uprising resulted in the expulsion of the Dalai Lama; since that time he has run a "government in exile" based in India and become a martyr for global political rights.

On March 10, in honor of the 49th anniversary of China's great experiment in the abuse of state sovereignty, Tibetan monks began to protest en masse the continued demonization of the Dalai Lama and China's efforts to ethnically cleanse Tibetans.

China, for its part, pledged to "resolutely crush" those people. Within days, it launched a fresh military campaign in the region. It kicked out journalists and declared no quarter on religious figures.

Anyway, a generation later, as a reward for Chinese progress and a concession that China has established itself as a modern global player, it gets to host the Olympics!

Irony in such high doses should be fatal.