About North Korea: Huh?

I never agreed with or quite understood the Bush Doctrine (In what respect, Charlie?) and after reading yesterday’s news, I understand it even less. I always thought that North Korea was still part of that “axis of evil” that Bush was always talking about. You know that little triumvirate – Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. We’ve already done away with Iraq, knocking them onto their axis. Iran we’ve yet to invade –er, deal with. Now, for reasons beyond human comprehension, we just crossed off North Korea. Only because they promised to let inspectors come into their country and look at what they’re doing with their plutonium. But only at some locations.

Well, as Garfield the cat used to say, “big, fat, hairy deal.”

Plutonium is only a small part of the picture. We didn’t get a go-ahead from “Dear Leader” to see what the heck they’re doing with uranium enrichment and with their other nuclear goodies, especially the kind that might be built into suitcase bombs and sold to any evil nasty from around the world who can pony up the bucks.

Good job, guys. That’s diplomacy at its best. I cringe at the idea that they’ve already started talking with Iran. So what are they going to walk away with here? A promise that angry mobs are not going to wave those “Death to America” signs on Al Jazeera, if we look the other way on some of that stuff Ahmadinejad has been spouting about wiping Israel off the map?  Oh, right. I can just see how those negotiations are going. “Okay, guys. You stop making us look bad on the air, and we’ll give you Britney Spears and the Internet.”

I see exactly what Bush is doing, and I don’t even work for the State Department. He’s got, oh, seven or so months left until he gets evicted from the White House, and so far that hunt for a positive legacy has eluded him. (Or has deluded him, one or the other.) It’s not looking like he’s getting anywhere with that whole economy thing, and it doesn’t look too good in Iraq, either. So what’s he doing? Sending Condoleezza Rice and her team jetting around the world doing what they should have been doing for the last eight years. Talking to people. You know, that whole diplomacy thing. The one that Barack Obama has been talking about?  The one that John McCain has been criticizing Barack Obama for? The one that you’re supposed to do before you ignore good intelligence and the opinions of your allies and bomb some country into the Stone Age?

There is a problem with waiting to do that. There’s a problem with alienating half the world by not doing that sooner. By waiting until your approval numbers are lower than Richard Nixon’s to do what you should have done the first place looks patently crafted to rank you somewhere a little higher in the history books.

And it’s too little, too late. And now that we’ve given North Korea the upper hand, I cringe to see what might happen next.

Perhaps Bush needs a weapon of mass distraction. Maybe he can see if Monica Lewinsky still has that blue dress.