Bush Meets Dalai Lama, but Quietly

President Bush ignored China's fury today and met with the Dalai Lama, who will pick up a Congressional Gold Medal tomorrow, Reuters reports. "If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world," said a Tibetan Communist Party boss. But the Dalai Lama shrugged off China's rage, saying, "That always happens."

The half-hour meeting was private, so as not to "make China feel that we are poking a stick in their eye," a White House spokesman said. But China's anger over the Dalai Lama, who sparked a revolt for Tibet's independence in 1959, is growing on the world stage: Beijing recently ignored meetings with Germany and other powers to protest support for the spiritual leader.
  (More Dalai Lama stories.)