Boy, just when the November election looks like it's goin' down the tubes for the Republicans -- thanks to Foleygate and the sorrowful state of the Iraq war which deeply bothers almost all Americans -- along comes Kim Jong-il and gives George what he's been hankerin' for: SOME DAMN ATTENTION! And an
entre to picking up the strands he's exploited to connect to Americans' deepest fears of nuclear annihilation and homeland attacks, as well as (just you wait!) bringing up Iran again.
This morning, Bush got to talk cowboy tough (transcript) on North Korea's claims of a successful nuclear test, which Bush said "constitutes a threat to international peace and stability." He responded testily to this question:
QUESTION: Thank you, sir. Mr. President, some in the national security community are wondering if, indeed, you are ready to live with a nuclear North Korea.
BUSH: No.
QUESTION: Well, they're saying that that is a possibility.
BUSH: Well, they're wrong.
QUESTION: Well, can I give you...
BUSH: Well, it's a short question -- a short answer.
And Bush got to talk the sophisticated James Baker-ish patter of a diplomat. (Boy, that Baker's been gettin' far too much press on HIS ideas for Iraq!)
"I've spoken with other world leaders, including Japan, China, South Korea and Russia ... in response to North Korea's provocation, we will increase defense cooperation with our allies, including cooperation on ballistic missile defense to protect against North Korean aggression, and cooperation to prevent North Korea from exporting nuclear and missile technologies."
Writes Dan Froomkin for the Washington Post:
As I've been chronicling over the last week or so, Bush has been having a devil of a time making anyone pay much attention to him of late. The Congressional page-sex scandal has sidelined him more than at any time in recent memory. His poll numbers are dismal. And Bob Woodward's latest book has finally convinced establishment Washington that he has a serious credibility problem.
The goal of today's press conference is to make sure that stories like this one, by Ken Herman of Cox News Service, don't become the norm. Herman writes: "At the worst possible time -- with pivotal congressional elections a month away -- an administration that thrives on controlling the message has lost control of it."
It's like 2004 when, some people claim, Osama bin Laden issued a video statement just before the election because bin Laden, for his diabolical reasons, wanted Bush to remain president. Maybe Kim Jong-il is doing the same?
But, whether planned or not, it's clear that Kim Jong-il, like Osama bin Laden, hearts the cowboy president whose unpopularity at home and around the world makes him a darker foe. And Bush hearts Kim Jong-il and Osama bin Laden because they both give him a pathway to drumming his "us against 'em" theme, recapturing his long-stranded connection to the nation's deepest and foremost need to survive, as well as tapping into its citizens' worst fears.
He can also woo back his core group, the Christian fundamentalists, by talking that "caliphate" talk.
The strategic goal is to help this young democracy [Iraq] succeed in a world in which extremists are trying to intimidate rational people in order to topple moderate governments and to extend the caliphate.
The stakes couldn't be any higher, as I said earlier, in the world in which we live. There are extreme elements that use religion to achieve objectives. And they want us to leave. And they want to topple government. They want to extend an ideological caliphate that has no concept of liberty inherent in their beliefs.
They want to control oil resources and they want to plot and plan and attack us again. That's their objectives.
He's trying to cope with the headlines about James Bakers' Iraq plan in the juvenile way he knows best. In the press conference, he called him "Jimmy," acted as if he weren't closely involved in the Iraq Study Group's planning, and -- if you'll notice the last -- misspoke about what Baker has been saying:
And I appreciate Jimmy Baker's willingness to -- he and Lee Hamilton are putting this -- they got a group they put together that -- I think it was Congressman Wolf's suggestion -- or passed into law.
We supported the idea. I think it's good to have some of our elder statesmen -- I hate to call Baker an elder statesman -- but to go over there and take a look and to come back and make recommendations.
Somebody said he said, "Well, you know, cut-and-run isn't working." That's not our policy.
And somebody tell me that this "breaking news" headline wasn't timed to give ol' Jimmy the finger, or at least a poke in the eye:
Army plans current Iraq troop levels until 2010
Top officer says future planning 'is not a prediction' of how war is going
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army has plans that would keep the current level of troops in Iraq -- about 15 brigades -- through 2010, the top Army officer said Wednesday. ...
Along with tapping into "the fear factor," Bush can give the North Korea crisis "legs" by transferring the lessons of that crisis to more talk about the dangers of a nuclear Iran.
Coincidentally, during Bush's press conference this morning, Diane Rehm hosted an hour on Iran, with Scott Ritter, whose new book is Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change -- and with Robert Kagan, whose book is Dangerous Nation.
I took some notes as I listened:
Kagan: [North Korea] may have blowback effect on Iran. It's possible that the world community will focus on the Iran issue even more intently than before.
Ultimately it will increase the desire of the governments in negotiation with Iran to take a somewhat tougher stand because the world has now witnessed the effect of failure in preventing proliferation, and I think there will be a certain impetus behind atougher stand ... btw, I don't think it'll necessarily last or be effective.
Scott Ritter: Bush will use the North Korean crisis to push a "bipartisan" Congress, the U.S., the Euro Union, and the American people to get tougher on Iran. ... the irony is it will push us further down the path to confrontation and a lack of resolution ...
You cannot compare North Korea with Iran. That's apples and oranges. These are two totally different problem sets. But the tendency will be that because we failed with North Korea, we must now take a tougher stance with Iran.
We failed with North Korea because we did not meaningfully engage with REAL diplomacy, and we're going to fail with Iran because once against we're going to see that confrontation and a hardline stance over genuine diplomacy which focuses on the reality of the situation vs. the spin ...
Listen for yourselves:
Real Audio || Windows Media
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A version will be posted at No Quarter.