Something About Belittling

The White house has belittled former President Bill Clinton for the ways he sought to deal with North Korea. White House Spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that "officials in Clinton's administration went to the North with offers of light-water nuclear reactors, a basketball signed by Michael Jordan as well as many other gifts for their agreement not to develop nuclear weapons." Snow says that this approach failed and that "we've learned from that mistake.

Funny, I don't remember hearing much about North Korea while Clinton was president. Sure they test fired their missile over southern Japan, but besides that they kept out of the spot light. Check out this blurb from BBC that shows what happened in 2000:

2000 - Summit in Pyongyang between Kim Jong-il and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. North stops propaganda broadcasts against the South.

Senior journalists from South Korea visit the North to open up communication.

Reopening of border liaison offices at the truce village of Panmunjom, in the no-man's-land between the heavily fortified borders of the two countries.

South Korea gives amnesty to more than 3,500 prisoners.

One hundred North Koreans meet their relatives in the South in a highly-charged, emotional reunion.

It seems to me that everything went to pot when Bush cancelled the light-water nuclear reactor project soon after he took the presidents office. Gee, an impoverished country that suffers from constant blackouts sure could use those reactors. It wasn't until after Bush scrapped that promise that the North took down the UN security cameras and began bragging about their nuclear arsenal.

I admit that the offer of a signed Michael Jordan basketball seems a bit odd, but look at who your talking about. North Korean defectors tell stories of Il's passion for Hollywood movies (he owns over 1,000 titles) and his love of food (he flew in a renowned Italian chef just to make him a pizza). This guy is a bit off his rocker. You can't deal with someone like this the way you would deal with the average person. Personally I think Bill Clinton did a great job of dealing with North Korea.