Category: U.S. Politics

A fitting video response to “the Obama gold plate” at YouTube: Being in Washington, D.C., this week is like being locked inside an echo chamber with loudspeakers playing “It’s a Small World” on a continuous feed. Regardless of your political sympathies, having all four branches of government heaping uncritical adulation on your head of state is bad for you.

We have a few more signs to read in trying to perceive what kind of North Korea policy we can expect from the Obama Administration: – Predictably, North Korea is trying to hit “reset” in its negotiations with the United States, in the hope of exchanging the same yet-to-be broken promises for a whole new round of concessions. Having gotten pretty much everything it wanted from Chris Hill, all that’s left to demand is the establishment of full diplomatic relations....

A week after we learned that the North Koreans  disinvited him from  visiting Kaesong — something about which our State Department offered no adverse reaction — Lefkowitz has canceled a scheduled visit to Seoul as well.  These events belie the sincerity of President Bush  and even Chris Hill sporadically talking the talk on human rights again: They “shared the view that in the process of normalizing relations, meaningful progress should be made on improving North Korea’s human rights record.” This...