As I watched the news from North Korea these past few days, I knew it was only a matter of time before Democrats began blaming President Bush for Kim Jung Il's nuclear test.  I'm no fan of the president, nor of the Republican party, as anyone who's read my blog will know.  But when it comes to North Korea ...

... au contraire.  Kim Jung Il is driving this crisis.  What's more, only one nation has the power to stop him, and the United States is not that nation.  That nation is China, and this week's North Korean nuclear test is China's failure, not the U.S.'s.

Must read article in the Washington Monthly by Fred Kaplan.

Rolling Blunder

How the Bush administration let North Korea get nukes.

By Fred Kaplan

On Oct. 4, 2002, officials from the U.S. State Department flew to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, and confronted Kim Jong-il's foreign ministry with evidence that Kim had acquired centrifuges for processing highly enriched uranium, which could be used for building nuclear weapons. To the Americans' surprise, the North Koreans conceded. It was an unsettling revelation, coming just as the Bush administration was gearing up for a confrontation with Iraq. This new threat wasn't imminent; processing uranium is a tedious task; Kim Jong-il was almost certainly years away from grinding enough of the stuff to make an atomic bomb.

WE SHOULD BE TALKING TO CHINA, and they control NORTH KOREA.Has anyone ever briefed you this President of North Korea? I'll tell you what I remember when the other guy died and this guy took over. He was trained in China for 20 years. He got the title of presidency when the other guy dropped dead. That was about 20 years ago?? Not sure exactly. He is perverted, and likes smut. He also likes country westerns. He shot down an American Passenger Plane during the Reagan Administration, but somehow the American Press happened to blame that on Russia, which may explain their statement. That ain't the kind of thing those guys should screw up. Then the question is, how did that happen? And the scary thought to me is, that is what a tight hold this so called socialist government has on our culture. They are masters at controlling people's thought patterns and getting them to behave the way they want. They have used me to turn people off to what is going on in this new world economy.

Given on September 12, 2005. Transcribed by Reg.

Thank you very much. It's great to be with you and thank you so much for that kind introduction, Dave, and for that warm welcome. Well,I'm very happy to be here.
I came in from Amsterdam at noon on a business meeting and I drove down from New York City this evening. And, I was in Amsterdam yesterday on business and people were, - we were all reflecting on the fact that it's been four years since the terrible events of September (pause) 11th. Four years. My Dutch friends, my Israeli friends that I was there for a business meeting with were all (in audible). And they were all expressing concern for our country, especially in the aftermath of the hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast and what seems to have been a discoordinated, uncoordinated, ineffective, slow, bewildering lack of responsiveness, which still hasn't been sorted out. But it created an image abroad of an America that somehow have lost the expertise and the leadership and the power to take care of its own people and to deal with its own future.