Bush: I was for diplomacy before I was against it. . . and vice versa
I have spent far too many hours trying to come up with a cogent way of explaining this, and I’m making myself crazy. . . .
In his Wednesday presser, President Bush said something like: the difference between Iraq and North Korea is that we had exhausted negotiations with Iraq, so we had to use force—the inference being that we had not exhausted negotiations with North Korea. Then Bush rejected negotiations with North Korea because talks won’t work because North Korea doesn’t want peace, and so, the only route to take with North Korea is to insist on six-party talks.
Really.
You don’t believe me, do you? I spent all Wednesday waiting for the transcript to be posted so that I could give it to you verbatim, and now I see that the New York Times was at least half as amused as I was; they lead with it in their coverage—it’s too long to block quote, but it’s a short article, go over and read it.
Why is Bush doing back-flips trying to explain his actions regarding a region he can’t even pronounce (over and over, he called it the “Korean Puh-nin-chula”)? Well, much to the surprise of Republicans, who initially thought that the North Korean nuke test was the best thing to happen to them since 9/11, Pyongyang’s fireworks seem to be evolving into what the Times says some presidential advisors see as “a political liability for Republicans” this election season.
Indeed, it seems that in their rush to place blame for this failure squarely on the shoulders of President Bill Clinton, the Republicans—John McCain (Asshole-AZ) being the most visible—have opened themselves up to. . . well. . . the truth.
(And if you don’t like the Think Progress analysis linked to above, you will find similar doubts in the NYT article, and an even more critical look at the Republican finger-pointing in a Washington Post piece by Glenn Kessler.)
In his Wednesday presser, President Bush said something like: the difference between Iraq and North Korea is that we had exhausted negotiations with Iraq, so we had to use force—the inference being that we had not exhausted negotiations with North Korea. Then Bush rejected negotiations with North Korea because talks won’t work because North Korea doesn’t want peace, and so, the only route to take with North Korea is to insist on six-party talks.
Really.
You don’t believe me, do you? I spent all Wednesday waiting for the transcript to be posted so that I could give it to you verbatim, and now I see that the New York Times was at least half as amused as I was; they lead with it in their coverage—it’s too long to block quote, but it’s a short article, go over and read it.
Why is Bush doing back-flips trying to explain his actions regarding a region he can’t even pronounce (over and over, he called it the “Korean Puh-nin-chula”)? Well, much to the surprise of Republicans, who initially thought that the North Korean nuke test was the best thing to happen to them since 9/11, Pyongyang’s fireworks seem to be evolving into what the Times says some presidential advisors see as “a political liability for Republicans” this election season.
Indeed, it seems that in their rush to place blame for this failure squarely on the shoulders of President Bill Clinton, the Republicans—John McCain (Asshole-AZ) being the most visible—have opened themselves up to. . . well. . . the truth.
(And if you don’t like the Think Progress analysis linked to above, you will find similar doubts in the NYT article, and an even more critical look at the Republican finger-pointing in a Washington Post piece by Glenn Kessler.)
posted by guy2k at 6:35 AM
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