Bush will go down as one of the worst presidents of all time. I remember when he declared Mandela dead. I wonder what Nelson Mandela thought of that?  I also remember when he declared the Constitution a piece of paper.  He is an idiots,idiot.  Now he is writing a memoir about his presidency which he announced on his recent visit to Alberta. I think his book signing might just be as lonely as that of Joe the Plumber.

Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.

Unless your immediate predecessor shat all over the Constitution and tortured a bunch of semi-random people.  That’s peachy.

It would have been nice if he’d toned down, rather than ramped up, as he has done in this speech, the general hysteria over the North Korean rocket launch. He’s not using the incoherent cowboy language of the previous incumbent, but it’s still my way or the highway, and that’s how the North Koreans will see it. As a threat. This will only encourage them to try harder to achieve a significant deterrent capacity vis a vis the perceived threat posed by the US and the international community it leads.

Robin, the North Koreans are going to see anything that anybody else on the planet does as a threat.  I really don’t think there is anything Obama could have said publicly that would have sent the message, “oh. well. hmph. I suppose we’re going to have to junk this whole setup. so yeah…” 

It seems that the goal of Obama’s speech here was to speak to the European community about a change in the US’s approach towards nuclear weapons.  Less “anyone we like gets nukes, anyone we don’t like doesn’t”, more global disarmament.  Of course I didn’t see that he promised to dismantle American nukes, though he has made noises in favor of disarmament in general already, within an American context.

Obama’s whole European tour really seems to be about sending a message to the world that the Bush presidency was an aberration, and that we’re back and ready to play nice again.  Which I think is a relief for everyone except the Rush Limbaugh Ass-Licker set.

Of course I didn’t see that he promised to dismantle American nukes, though he has made noises in favor of disarmament in general already, within an American context.

He pulled the heads of Russia and China apart privately and discussed disarmament with them.  When he arrived neither of them was keen on the idea.  Now they are negotiating.

I’m not 100% thrilled with everything he’s done, but the improvement over his predecessor is unbelievable.

“He pulled the heads of Russia and China apart privately…”

Now if we could just get Obama to pull Kim Jong-Il’s head apart, maybe we could get somewhere…

I think that what bothers me the most is that they are considering more sanctions against North Korea.  I do understand that a tough stance needs to occur but it is not Kim Jong-Il that will suffer.  He has already proven more than willing to let his people suffer for his own false sense of glory.  We need to weigh deterrence against the human cost.

North Korea is holding its own people hostage; at some point, it’s on them.

Have you noticed, though, that since leaving office, Bush has been sounding much more reasonable and intelligent?  I still think he has been suffering from chronic pain for many years, so maybe leaving office and a change in medication were all he needed.

It’s more on the Chinese, who provide tons of support for the Kim regime.  (Official U.S. policy chooses to ignore this.)  Though not for the people of North Korea, who, to all reports, are not only held hostage but are kept riding the edge of malnutrition.  Food aid from South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and other not-so-totalitarian nations keeps them alive.

Basically, Kim Jong Il has exactly one stick—“Give me something or I’ll blow the shit out of Seoul”—and he uses it to make sure he’s getting the attention he so badly needs.  It’s all good attention, right?

It is refreshing to hear a Chief Executive addressing the world community using good old-fashioned imperialism-disguised-as-statesmanship instead of numbskull bullying and bluster.

...North Korea must know that the path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal weapons.

Maybe North Korea should try occasionally bombing and invading its neighbors and holding millions of people prisoner on their own land in a brutal and illegal occupation.

If we really want world peace and security, then we have to start by examining our own hypocrisy and double standards.  Kim Jong-Il might be a brutal dictator, but we’ve given aid and comfort to far worse when it suited our ‘interests.’  Just ask the survivors of those tortured and massacred in places like East Timor and Uzbekistan (and the list goes on, but you get the point).

I don’t want to hear shit else about North Korea’s theoretical nukes as long as we refuse to hold Israel (which has hundreds of illegal nukes of its own) accountable for the deaths of over a thousand civilians (a third of them children).

as well as you, will be interested to seen how he handles it when he is directly challenged by our enemies.

I seriously doubt that Obama can do any worse than the last guy in the job.

I seriously doubt that Obama can do any worse than the last guy in the job.

It would take a real effort for someone as smart and competent as Obama to approach that kind of epic fail.  I don’t think he has that kind of fail in him.  The problem, though, is that things have been screwed up so badly that it will take more than competence to improve upon the status quo.  Its going to take a willingness to challenge the systems and ideologies that gave the Bushies room to move.

While approval by Old Europe

No such fucking thing. The industrial revolution happened there at the same time as it did here, and it’s that which makes a modern state.

Obama has yet to be tested by our enemies.

The enemies of America lie within America—specifically, the State Department, the Pentagon, and many other government and corporate offices. If Obama were to oppose him, he’d have to oppose much of his staff and advisory personnel. No foreign power would be even a remote threat to the U.S. citizen but for the malice and selfishness of U.S. leaders.

Obama’s competency is not an absolute good. His competence allows him to better use my tax dollars to hurt and murder innocent people and empower people who would do wrong by me and mine.

I will continue to articulate

Bush is such a damn liar! :p

Pam wrote:

It’s refreshing not to hear cheap, inflammatory phrases like “Dead Or Alive,” “Mission Accomplished,” or “I’m the Decider.” We all know Barack Obama has an actual functioning brain.

Yeah, which is why President Obama said:

Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.

and then said he’d refer this to the United Nations’ Security Council, which means that Mr Obama just guaranteed that the rules were not binding, that violations would not be punished, and that his words mean nothing at all. 

The New York Times said:

The Security Council may slap Pyongyang on the wrist, as it has before, but China, a permanent member, has often stood in the way of strong international action.

I remember a line from Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, in which she once said that calling a very light sentence given to a rapist a slap on the wrist was an insult to people who actually got slaps on the wrist. I’m guessing that would apply here as well.

Just what do you think President Obama will actually do about this?  My guess is: nothing at all, unless, of course, you count saying harsh words as doing something.

What Dana said.  The reason the UN Security Council is such a farce is that the biggest players never play fair.  I recall Queen Noor last week chiding the US and other western nations for getting ‘tough’ with Sudan’s president for his complicity in the suffering in Darfur, while lifting not so much as a scolding eyebrow in the direction of Israel for its massacre in Gaza.

Obama is blowing smoke on this issue, not because he isn’t tough enough to be taken seriously, but because his stance is so nakedly hypocritical.  If security is the ultimate goal, then belligerence isn’t going to work with North Korea.  It will take some imaginative and grown-up diplomacy, because there’s little use threatening a regime that knows it has very little to lose.  Just because Obama is playing nice and asking the UN to get involved in his bullshit doesn’t make the bullshit smell any better.

The last two NK long range rocket tests, which were both miserable failures, were not tests of viable military weapons. You can’t threaten or deter with a flimsy three-stage liquid fueled rocket that sits out in the open on a flimsy launch pad. If a standoff became hot, almost any other power in the area could destroy such rockets on the ground. Don’t think for a minute that Japan couldn’t.

NK is a one trick pony. They have lots of dug in artillery that can threaten the most heavily populated parts of SK. That’s all they need.

“Can we win? I don’t think you can win it.” — after being asked whether the war on terror was winnable, “Today” show interview, Aug. 30, 2004

This is not insane, ignorant, or amoral. It’s a fact. You cannot win a “war” on a feeling or a tactic.

What was amoral was declaring the war in the first place. But it was not insane or ignorant. The Bush administration knew that by declaring an unwinnable war, they could remain at war indefinitely, and curtail civil privileges for indeterminate reasons.

Bush will not be an aberration, as long as voters value the incompetence and offensiveness of Bush-like politicians as signs they are genuine, “just like me” and worthy beer buddies.

Seems to me that, when your opponent is a tiny, dirt-poor country which can barely feed its citizens, presided over by a megalomaniacal cult-leader-esque nutball with a wack hairstyle, who believes all kinds of deluded stuff, and runs an economy which is both inflexible and massively corrupt… in such a situation, it can’t be that hard to buy off, befriend, confuse, stymie, deter and/or scare away this ‘threat’. Do y’all think I’m underestimating N. Korea here?

Seriously, how does this wackjob end up being such a huge issue for the global order, rather than just an oddity?

You cannot win a “war” on a feeling or a tactic.

Especially when you insist on using that tactic whenever possible.

Seriously, how does this wackjob end up being such a huge issue for the global order, rather than just an oddity?

We made him such, I think. It’s not as if we’ve worked hard to stop his attempts at espionage. His people worked with rightwing megalomaniac and heritic Sun Yung Moon, for example, and our government wasn’t too concerned about that, seeing as how Moon is a prominent rightwing patron.

Our government is run by criminals. Do criminals you know of run about fretting over the actions of other criminals? Never happens, of course, unless some other gang undercuts one’s bottom line.