Bush Takes Hard Line on China’s Culinary Abuses

(Flickr user dslrninja)

Meeting with high-level Beijing officials on his visit to attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, President George W. Bush wasted no time in acting on his recent vow not to let the Chinese government off the hook.

Bush immediately came down hard on China’s “scandalous, appalling and maybe even bad” handling of the global monosodium glutamate, or MSG, threat. Waving a sheaf of Chinese restaurant menus listing literally hundreds of MSG-laced items, Bush charged that despite widespread protests and warnings from eminent medical authorities, Chinese restaurants and MSG continue to conspire in a deadly “Axis of Eatin’” that is raising sodium levels to the danger point around the world.

Until Chinese kitchens show a genuine intent to destroy or sharply reduce their wanton MSG use, said the president, “Americans may be forced not to leave tips in Chinese restaurants or for their take-out delivery men – tips that simply mean more money for China to invest in MSG production, further accelerating the deadly sodium spiral.”

Bush had been widely expected to focus this meeting on other issues, like China’s controversial record on human rights. But the president said his attack on MSG was in no way evading that hot-button issue. “What’s a more human right,” he asked, “than to chow down on moo-goo pork and hot shrimp and all that good stuff?”

The president later attended a prison-yard crafts show; a 503-point explanation of the Dalai Lama’s Nazi connections, and an exercise program that teaches pollution-sensitive Chinese schoolchildren how to hold their breath until adulthood.

Bruce McCall, a humorist, is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He is the author of “All Meat Looks Like South America: The World of Bruce McCall” and “Zany Afternoons.”