Obama Persuades Liberals that John Bolton Was Right About North Korea

At the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanford Professor Joel Brinkley argues the President Obama is “wasting his time” trying to improve relations with North Korea:

In the months since Obama took office, North Korea has test fired long-range missiles, threatened and belittled South Korea and conducted a nuclear test – even as Washington let Pyongyang know that it wanted to improve relations. Finally, it appears, the administration has had enough.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, attending the July 23 meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Phuket, Thailand, was characteristically late for a session where, it turned out, a North Korean delegate was scheduled to make a statement. The North Koreans stormed out when Clinton failed to show up to hear them. Then they held a news conference to denounce her.

For her part, Clinton said America and its Asian allies have reached a ” new consensus” on North Korean policy – to ratchet up pressure, exactly the opposite of Obama’s original goal: improving relations. [Joel Brinkley, SF Chronicle]

It’s welcome to see reality setting in at last, but would liberals be migrating this conclusion en masse if a Republican occupied the White House today? Now if only liberals would begin to think in revolutionary terms that go beyond haggling with the regime. Beyond conventional diplomacy lies engagement with, and the empowering of, the North Korean people.