Basketball diplomacy versus no diplomacy:

John McCain has really gone over the deep end in his quest to wrap up that all important GOP nomination for prez. First, it was showing what a good Republican he was by shredding the consitution for W., and now he's blaming the North Korean bomb on Bubba. That's rich!

The WaPo reports that he went after Hillary in Chi-Town yesterday saying, "I would remind Senator Clinton and other Democrats critical of Bush administration policies that the framework agreement her husband's administration negotiated was a failure."

And what would he call the past six years of W.? It seems to me that I remember North Korea being still crazy but decidedly non-nuclear when Madaline Albright was over there trying to coax Kim Jong Il out of his hermit-hole. Okay, it didn't wind up working (remember, he's crazy), but at least they tried. (And if the Reps want to bring up "basketball diplomacy," we can remind them about "slam dunk" intelligence)

Under Clinton, McCain claims, "we had a carrots-and-no-sticks policy." Now, of course, we've had six years of a no carrots and no sticks policy that has led to Kim Jong Martian with his hands on the button. Much better result.

McCain went on, "Every single time the Clinton administration warned the Koreans not to do something -- not to kick out the IAEA inspectors, not to remove the fuel rods from their reactor -- they did it. And they were rewarded every single time by the Clinton administration with further talks."

But didn't W. just say today that "diplomacy is a difficult process" but that it "hasn’t run its course." Sounds like rewarding North Korea with further talking to me. What would he suggest Bubba had done anyway, gone ahead and attacked Pyongyang? (Naturally, the Republicans would have attcked him for trying divert attention from Monica.)

But you see, W.'s approach is much better; we tell them not to do something -- they do it -- and then we ask the Russians and the Chinese again to handle it, because we're busy in Iraq. And why are we so busy in Iraq? I seem to recall W. telling an audience in Cincinnati back in 2002 that:

"If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons? Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." [CNSNews]

This would seem to me to be a situation where we pretty much have unambiguous proof that North Korea has the ability to make real mushroom clouds, not the fantasy kind Dick Cheney thought Saddam had. By the way, what ever happened to W. vowing that, "We will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea"?

I guess, that's out the window. Oh, but rest assured, we're really not going to tolerate a nuclear IRan. You can bet the farm on that!