Poll: Obama Too Soft on North Korea

Admittedly, I’m ambivalent about this.  On the one hand, I’ve noted signs that Obama’s North Korea policy is headed in the right direction — a far better one than Bush’s, if carried out in a sustained and comprehensive way — although I think Obama will probably do a Chris Hill and buy the same horse all over again the minute North Korea offers to sign Agreed Framework III.  Still, my idea of “loyal opposition” extends an elected president and its fellow citizens the benefit of reasonable doubts and objective criticism, as opposed to binary zero-sum rancor.

I also recognize what Obama’s supporters on the left have learned — words are only that until they translate into action, and polls like this push Obama toward taking action:

A FOX News poll released Monday finds more than two-thirds of Americans say Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea (69 percent), while some 15 percent think his actions have been “about right” and 3 percent think he has been too tough.

Sizable majorities of Democrats (65 percent), Republicans (78 percent) and independents (61 percent) agree Obama should be tougher on North Korea. Among those voters who backed Obama in the 2008 presidential election, 59 percent say he has not been tough enough.  [Fox News]

Let me just pause here to say what an odd position it is to be on the far-left fringe of public opinion.  And if by “tough enough,” some suggest that direct military action is the solution, I’m not budging on that one.  Still, give the people credit for recognizing the real danger:

People are most concerned North Korea will sell nukes to terrorists. Twice as many say their main concern is North Korea selling nuclear weapons (41 percent), as say attacking the United States (18 percent). For 1 in 10 the top concern is North Korea attacking a nearby country (10 percent) such as Japan or South Korea. Nearly a quarter of Americans (24 percent) says they are equally concerned about all of these possibilities.

The poll, taken before the recent protests in Iran, also showed that the people think Obama has been too soft on Ahmedinejad.

By the way, here’s more reason for caution about any optimism about Obama:  the administration has decided that its robust enforcement of UNSCR 1874 goes no further than asking North Korean WMD ships to pretty please stop and give us a peek:

In discussing President Obama’s strategy on Monday, administration officials said that the United States would report any ship that refused inspection to the Security Council. While the Navy and American intelligence agencies continued to track the ship, the administration would mount a vigorous diplomatic effort to insist that the inspections be carried out by any country that allowed the vessel into port.  [N.Y. Times]

Including Iran, Syria, and Burma, I presume (let alone China)?  God help us all.  The administration responds that North Korean ships don’t have the range to go long distances.  I’m sure the North Koreans are welding new fuel compartments into their ships as we speak.
And now, we rejoin the mainstream with a screedy vengeance!

Like three-fourths (!) of Americans — and virtually no one on a certain continent known for techno-dancing, hash-toking skinheads, ornate and empty cathedrals, and lovely chocolates — I think the idea of closing Gitmo was a colossal blunder.  Yes, it’s a Fox poll.  I wonder how much differently an MSNBC polls would come out.  Advantage, Cheney:

There is widespread belief that President Obama made a mistake by announcing he was going to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay before having a plan for what would happen to the detainees.

Fully 77 percent of Americans think the president made a mistake, including almost all Republicans (94 percent) and independents (81 percent), as well as a majority of Democrats (61 percent).

A growing majority of Americans think the military prison at Guantanamo Bay should stay open. Some 60 percent say they think Gitmo should not be closed, up from 53 percent in April and 45 percent in January.

Republicans (82 percent) are more than twice as likely as Democrats (40 percent) to say the prison should stay open. Among independents, 62 percent think it should stay open.

The results are similar on the question of whether the prisoners should be transferred to prisons in the United States. Overall, 60 percent of voters are against moving the prisoners to the United States, up from 55 percent last month and 52 percent in January.

The fact is, neither our legal system nor our international norms have caught up to the age of mass terror.  I’m glad we haven’t lost all sense of balance between the rights of mass terrorists and those of ordinary civilians they would summarily deprive of their lives and loved ones, and of every liberty we exercise every day.  Protecting our civilian populations requires “robust” new rules for dealing with people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, but we also need those rules to have enough judicial review built in to prevent them from crossing certain lines:  murder and mutilation, the suppression of nonviolent dissent, and the corruption of long-standing rules for ordinary criminal procedure.  It is for failing to initiate, lead, and sustain a public conversation about this new set of rules — not for waterboarding three mass murderers I’d have personally lowered into wood chippers on Pay Per View — where Bush and Cheney deserve blame (and in my more introspective moments, yes, I’m thankful that cooler heads keep me far away from wood chippers).

Still, it looks like a solid majority believes that Nancy Pelosi was a participant in that conversation, and we’ve certainly heard a lot less about waterboarding and Vishinsky-style show trials “truth” commissions since that neat little fact came to light:

On the issue of the CIA briefing Congress on interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects, who do Americans believe — the CIA, who says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the techniques or Nancy Pelosi, who says she was not briefed?

By 56 percent to 22 percent Americans believe the CIA over Pelosi.

Most Republicans (78 percent) and independents (56 percent) believe the CIA. Democrats are divided — 38 percent believe the CIA and 38 percent Pelosi, while 10 percent say there is “some truth to both.”