Will Obama, Hu Talk Human Rights?

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) makes a good point: As President Obama prepares to wine and dine Chinese President Hu Jintao at an official state dinner Wednesday, Smith has called it "almost unthinkable" for a Nobel Peace Prize winner like Obama to meet "a political leader responsible for jailing another laureate and not demand publicly for their fellow laureate's release." (This year’s winner, Liu Xiaobo, is imprisoned in China and missed the Nobel ceremony.) Chinese democracy advocates, plus representatives of the Uighur and Tibetan minorities, are pressuring Obama to speak publicly about China’s human-rights record. Robert Gibbs has said Obama will raise "his direct concerns on the issues of human rights."