On Bill Clinton’s successful diplomatic trip morally repugnant capitulation to North Korea, Spencer Ackerman’s satirical take is all you really need to consult:
In an unforeseen turn of events, Bill Clinton strapped himself with nuclear weapons and detonated during a meeting with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang. The former president’s inability to free imprisoned American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling ended in carnage, the only diplomatic language the North Koreans understand. Clinton, recognizing that diplomacy was useless, bit his lip sorrowfully and expressed regret that so many had to die in the name of American prestige, according to a suicide note obtained by this blog.
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Back in the United States, conservatives expressed relief that Clinton chose an honorable end to his life. “Diplomacy with the North would be the worst of all possible options,” said Rep. Guy “Whitey” Corngood (R-Ark.), a longtime Clinton critic. “Bringing those two Americans back without incident would have represented an unacceptable humiliation for this country.” Attempts to reach John Bolton, a former undersecretary of state and U.N. ambassador in the Bush administration, were unsuccessful, but associates said Bolton credited Clinton for posthumously vindicating his worldview and that the former diplomat was considering a courtesy call to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to express condolences.
What makes this morbid telling (Bill Clinton did not actually blow himself up, and did successfully negotiate the release of the American journalists) even funnier is that John Bolton could be reached, and, predictably enough, still thought that Clinton’s visit did nothing but “reward[] bad behavior” and “legitimize the [North Korean] regime.” That, and, well, accomplish the only goal that he had in going over there.
I’m consistently struck by how ironically similar the likes of John Bolton are to Kim Jong Il and North Korea’s power-obsessed cadre of leaders. The only ones who think that an insignificant sop to the latter’s silly sense of pride amounts to a serious concession by the United States are the North Korean leaders themselves and, well, Boltonites. Only these two groups of dolts take what Bolton calls “gesture politics” as a matter more serious than actual politics and policy — which, once again, resulted in North Korea releasing two wrongly imprisoned journalists and the United States giving up nothing more than a day of face time with Bubba.
(image from flickr user Creative+ Timothy K Hamilton under a Creative Commons license)