The Candidates on North Korea (Fred Thompson)
Whew. I had expected these primary things to make this project a little less ambitions. I expected wrong. Next:
SIMON: Well, here’s our final question, though. As you probably know, I’m sure you know, Ambassador Bolton has become very critical of the Bush administration since his resignation from the United Nations. He wrote a book about it and he’s made a lot of public statements. Do you think — and implying that the Bush administration is essentially walking backwards on the war on terror. Do you think he has a point?
THOMPSON: I will say this. I do share his concern about a deal with North Korea. North Korea is a country that’s never kept a bargain it’s ever made. Any deal with them has got to be based upon verification. It’s a country that it may be impossible to carry out verification. They’ve lied to us before about that. And now it looks like from all we can tell and from statements that current members of Congress have made that they can make due to the classified nature of what they’re seeing, my guess is that North Korea is now outsourcing a lot of its stuff to Syria. And we saw the Israelis launch a strike against the Syrian location and the word is that they were in the process of building a plant there and with Syrian assistance perhaps.
I hope the administration is not so intent on making a deal on its way out that they get into the situation that the Clinton administration did with the agreed framework when North Korea was giving us here and taking back over here, you know, behind the scenes.
At the end of the day, we’ve got to have verification before we start rewarding them again. We’re giving them current rewards for future promises. It’s never worked before with them. And I’m skeptical of it. [Pajamas Media]
That’s a close second to McCain’s answer in my book, but Fred didn’t say anything about human rights and doesn’t have much other information of interest on his site. You can watch the whole thing on video here. By the end of the day, we’ll know if his campaign is viable. Conventional wisdom is that if he doesn’t win in South Carolina, he’s finished.
Thompson did work China/North Korea issues at some point after leaving the senate, though I’m not sure how in-depth in research he got and have not been able to located any papers to come from that stint.
Fred is my first choice though not viable, which is sad for conservatives. Of the rest I would favor McCain except for his positions on immigration and global warming (he drank the Kool-Aid).
Pretty safe to say that any Democrat would favor continuing the pseudo-engagement with North Korea that Bush has lamely chosen. It’s really a repeat of Clinton’s Operation-Sweep-It-Under-The-Rug-And-Leave-It-For-The-Next-Guy. If Rice visits KJI it’ll be complete. It would be somewhat ironic for Hillary to inherit Bill’s mess, though I’d rather that little bit of poetic justice not occur.
Right, but can you deny that the Bush Administration is doing exactly the same thing? I foresee a serious consistency problem for conservatives here. If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama pursues a similar policy, they will certainly hoist up the spectre of Agreed Framework 2.0 as a shield against their conservative critics. The only conservatives who will emerge from this episode with credibility will be those who were either opposed or very skeptical early on or from the beginning.
No, I don’t deny it, it’s, “continuing the pseudo-engagement with North Korea that Bush has lamely chosen.” I have a glimmer of hope left for some rope tricks, but know it’s not likely.