GOP Rep. Ros-Lehtinen Skips Dinner With Hu

While VIPs inside and outside the Beltway scrambled for invitations to this week’s White House state dinner honoring Chinese President Hu Jintao, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee chucked hers, the Naked Politics blog of the Miami Herald reports. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen not only declined to dine in splendor with Hu on Tuesday, she deemed him a poor choice for the honor.

“There are so many leaders who are far more deserving [of a state dinner] than the leader of a repressive regime,” said the Havana-born Miami congresswoman, a Republican.

Ros-Lehtinen said she will see Hu soon enough when he visits Congress on Thursday. That’s when she plans to hand him a letter critical of China’s Internet censorship and political and religious repression.