North Korea lost Axis of Evil membership yesterday for producing a paper list in exchange for a sweetheart deal for jet fuel and yet still… refine Uranium. George Bush stood on the floor of the Israeli Knesset last month playing an obscene partisan game invoking Holocaust imagery while denouncing Barack Obama as an “appeaser” for wanting Iranian talks without the Bush precondition they cease enriching Uranium.
We all remember from the “Best of Tony,” clips from former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, as he two years ago publicly derided the Clinton Administration for its effort in this area by saying, “Bill Richardson went with flowers and chocolates, he went with light water nuclear reactors and he went with promises of heavy oil, a basketball signed by Michael Jordan and many other inducements for the Dear Leader to try to agree not to develop nuclear weapons and it failed.”
As MSNBC’s Keith Olberman pointed out last night in his Countdown show, “the North Koreans did not have nuclear weapons until six years into the Bush Administration and despite Mr. Snow’s contempt for the Clinton Administration offer of oil, National Security Advisor Steven Hadley today confirmed that part of the current US offer includes.. jet fuel.”
So how does one explain engaging with North Korea in this type of discussion whilst painting Republican opponents label those advocating discussion with our “enemies” as appeasers?
Well every leader except George Bush (I looked in to Putin’s eyes and saw someone I could deal with) understands the phrase, “keep your friends close and your enemies even closer” so why the sudden change?
It’s legacy time baby! History is already looking at the past 7½ years with something akin to wonder so the race to January 20th is on with peace in the Middle East and deals to be made everywhere the biggest priority. “Gotta make sure when I’m sitting on that porch swing waiting for Scott McClellan to walk through the sight of my shotgun in Crawford that history is being kind…”
So it’s really very simple… develop a bomb, show that you have enough fissionable material to make up to six others and then we’ll talk? Imagine the sheer joy every wing-nut leader in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and even South America feels today knowing that these are the rules and stakes.
Down is up as this joke of an Administration limps through its last 207 days until high noon on 20 January 2009. Let’s just hope Bush sticks to silly rhetoric and keeps us out of crisis and quietly slinks out of town.
That would be the best legacy possible.
