PRESIDENT MEETS THE PRESS

At this point, Bush's appearance on NBC's Meet the Press last Sunday has been blasted by many sources, including, surprisingly, lots of conservatives, so I'm going to hit on just one segment of the interview that addresses a comment I made on January 25th:

One of the things that made it clear to me that Iraq was not a threat to the US was how we handled North Korea. Iraq insisted, again and again, that they had no WMDs. North Korea, however, proudly proclaimed that they had nuclear weapons. Iraq gets invaded; North Korea gets diplomacy. That struck me as a wildly odd contradiction.

The President finally spoke out on this:

Russert: But there are lots of madmen in the world, Fidel Castro …

President Bush: True.

Russert: … in Iran, in North Korea, in Burma, and yet we don't go in and take down those governments.

President Bush: Correct, and I could — that's a legitimate question as to why we like felt we needed to use force in Iraq and not in North Korea. And the reason why I felt like we needed to use force in Iraq and not in North Korea, because we had run the diplomatic string in Iraq. As a matter of fact, failed diplomacy could embolden Saddam Hussein in the face of this war we’re in. In Iraq — I mean, in North Korea, excuse me, the diplomacy is just beginning. We’re making good progress in North Korea.

For the rest of the transcript, courtesy of Eschaton, click here.

Now, if I recall correctly, at the time that North Korea announced that it has nuclear weapons, the UN had inspectors on the ground in Iraq: meanwhile, the North Koreans were kicking their own weapons inspectors out. Given that context, how the hell can Bush assert that "we had run the diplomatic string in Iraq" but that "diplomacy is just beginning" in North Korea? Obviously, Bush gave a bullshit answer. Of course, Russert, often called a "Republican shill" by his detractors, gave the chimp a pass.

Nothing in American politics surprises me anymore.

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