During his visit to America, the Obama administration held a state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao. This is one of those fancy diplomatic affairs where everything is supposed to be just right so that no one is offended. After all, wars have been started by offending national leaders. Included on the entertainment venue was pianist Lang Lang. One song in his repertoire was a well known Chinese tune rendered "My Motherland." Turns out that this is the theme song to a Chinese movie about the battle of Shangganling Mountain. John Hayward reveals:

Where's Shangganling Mountain, you ask?  Why, it's in Korea.  It was the site of a bloody battle, fought in late 1952 during the Korean War, in which Chinese forces repulsed a sustained attack from American and South Korean troops.  The movie whose theme Lang tickled out of those ivories is an anti-American propaganda film.  An article in the The Epoch Times points out that the lyrics to its theme song describe American soldiers as "jackals."

Lang Lang contends that he plays this song regularly because he has liked its tune since childhood. Fine. I like some tunes from my childhood that turn out to have horrid lyrics, and I still find myself humming them from time to time.

But this is a state dinner. A fancy diplomatic affair, remember? So why would an American president hosting a Chinese communist president allow a tune to be played that conjures up images of Korean War veterans as "jackals" by those who are familiar with the tune's source and meaning? Why would an American president think that this insult to a segment of American veterans is appropriate?

At the very least, an apology from the White House should be issued to our Korean War veterans. Apologies, after all, are a very vogue thing: white Americans are supposed to apologize to African American slaves, Native Americans, and Japanese Americans for long past atrocities. This, at least, is a current event where an apology could actually be meaningful. The White House response thus far?

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor told ABC News that "any suggestion that this was an insult to the United States is just flat wrong.  As Lang Lang has stated before, he plays this song regularly because it is one of his favorite Chinese melodies, which is very widely known and popular in China for its melody.  Lang Lang played the song without lyrics or reference to any political themes during the entertainment portion of the State Dinner. He simply stated the song's title and noted it was well known in China."

If you are offended by this insult to honorable American veterans, then you are "just flat wrong."

Instead of having our back, this Commander-in-Chief is all about stabbing us in the back.