What We Could Expect of Kerry and Kim

I know . . . sounds like porn, but it isn’t.

One–umm–revealing fact is the degree of positive press that Kerry is getting in the North Korean papers. Perhaps this is simply a reaction against Bush, the devil they know. But it’s also likely that the North Koreans–like many Americans–look at Kerry’s long, dovish record on defense and foreign policy issues and suspect that he will take a softer line and seek (like South Korea) to avoid giving offense and making tough decisions. Indeed, Kerry has advocated almost the same position as North Korea on the nuke talks. Kim Jong Il’s position is pay-freeze-talk-dismantle; Kerry’s position is freeze-pay-talk-dismantle. Bush’s position is “we talked, you dismantle.” If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Kerry’s own site. As for Bush, he’s suffered a very encouraging loss of patience with North Korea of late. His ballsy willingness to create offense when necessary tempts even the jaded.

Kerry today admits that many of his votes against most of the weapons systems we are using today were “stupid.” He regrets voting against the first Gulf War and for the nuclear freeze. He opposed U.S. policies in Central America with such fury as to almost appear to support the brutal and aggressive Sandinistas, although Reagan’s policy, clumsy as it may have been–and it was tragically absent in Guatemala–helped bring democracy and rising standards of living back to El Salvador and Nicaragua. There’s also much about his recent votes on Iraq that are inconsistent and suggest much less starch than Bush. Yet Bush himself, as Chris Beaumont notes, has talked some but generally done little.

We thus find ourselves in a similar position equal but opposite to Kim Jong Il; we are unable to recognize any clear position we can enthusiastically support, but have good reason to suspect that one candidate will eventually arrive at policy that would be much worse than the other’s.

One actually begins to wonder seriously what Ralph Nader thinks. Unfortunately, a search of the word “Korea” on Ralph’s site gets you a big goose-egg. Perhaps if Nader were the first one to make a real issue of human rights in North Korea, it could have a domino effect on Kerry and Bush.

Meanwhile, in South Korea . . . there’s an election going on there, too. Once, red-baiting was the last refuge of a scoundrel in Korean politics. Today, though, it’s anti-Americanism, and Roh is cranking it up, blaming America for the failure of the six-party talks (yes, the ones in which North Korea continued its mendacity about enriching uranium and actually stepped backward, claiming that some of its nuclear programs were entirely peaceful and thus non-negotiable). Search every alley in Pyongtaek and you won’t find a mangier cur–caged or free–than Roh Moo-Hyun.