Well, this doesn’t help Clinton’s 3AM, leadership or experienced arguments much…

The TimesOnline has reported that Senator Clinton gave praise to British PM Gordon Brown’s decision not to attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games. She interpreted the move as the PM adopting a pro-Tibet and anti-China stance. Brown however had planned on skipping the opening ceremonies in favor of attending the closing ceremonies for quite awhile and had no plans to make any statement at all by his decision.

From the Times:

An exasperated Downing Street criticised the BBC and Channel 4 News for what it said was an inaccurate representation of Mr Brown’s longstanding decision to attend the closing ceremony and not the opening.

Critics have accused the Prime Minister of causing confusion by his remarks at a recent news conference with President Sarkozy of France. Mr Sarkozy mentioned the possibility of a boycott whereas Mr Brown ruled one out, saying: “Britain will be attending the Olympic Games ceremonies.”
Mrs Clinton jumped to the conclusion that he was taking a stand. “I wanted to commend Prime Minister Gordon Brown for agreeing not to go to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing,” she said.

Mrs Clinton jumped to the conclusion that he was taking a stand. “I wanted to commend Prime Minister Gordon Brown for agreeing not to go to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing,” she said.

Downing Street said that Mr Brown publicly accepted an invitation from Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Prime Minister, to attend the Games when he went to China in January.

According to officials, he told Mr Wen that he would go to the closing ceremony as that would mark the handover to London for the 2012 Olympics. Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, will be at the opening ceremony.