Clinton? Jeez, that was only 6 years ago, how long you going to blame him for Bush's total inaction for these past 6 years.

At least Clinton TRIED to do SOMETHING. Bush has not done a damn thing and now you try to blame Clinton. Typical conservatism

Maybe instead of chocolates and flowers we should have tried blessings? Send King Jong Il a blessing from www.onlineblessings.com and this baffling turn of events may cause him to forget firing missles.

Why all the negativity, axis? I can roll with this post - sure - Clinton did next to nothing, Bushco has done an awful lot of completely the wrong thing, now someone else can come along and try to figure out what's the right thing to do after Bushco has fucked things up so terribly...

Love,
that commie bastard

Ha! Straight talk from Tony Snow and the White House. It's about time!

The deal brokered under Clinton kept North Korea's nuclear ambitions at bay for a decade. Immediately synchronized with Bush's refusal to deal with NK diplomatically, inspectors were kicked out and the weapons program was restarted, openly, in defiance of world opinion.

In addition to the fact that we're dealing with madmen in North Korea, the entire practice of non-poliferation requires concessions to be made to entice aspiring nuclear powers to abandon those hopes. You can't, with a straight face, tell someone they can't arm themselves with weapons we have by the thousands (and also have pointed at their capitals). Bush has horribly failed with diplomacy in that respect. Trotting out a deal brokered over a decade ago to excuse oneself for inaction now is horribly pathetic.

axis and minnowhead you and your democrat talking points ignore the following FACTS:

A pattern of appeasement and blindness to the growing threats posed by North Korea by the Clinton administration led us directly to where we are today.

• 1993: North Korea threatens to leave the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. After conducting U.N. inspections there for a year and a half, former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Hans Blix warns he can't provide "any meaningful assurances" North Korea isn't making nuclear weapons.

• 1994: Under the "Agreed Framework" negotiated by the Clinton administration with help of ex-President Carter, North Korea agrees to stop building nuclear weapons. In exchange, it gets billions in aid, including food, oil and modern nuclear reactors.

A 1994 congressional report, states thatNorth Korea would become the "largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid" in Asia by 2000. North Korea immediately (1994) starts cheating on the deal, acquiring nuclear know-how and material from Pakistan and China, with US money

• 1998: A U.S. government report finds at least 1 million North Koreans have died of starvation as US aid is diverted to kick-start the nuclear weapons program.

• 1998: Clinton's military chief of staff tells Congress North Korea has no active ballistic missile program. A week later, North Korea shoots a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan and toward Alaska.

• 1999: Clinton EASES sanctions against North Korea at the behest of Albright and Carter. U.S. signs a $5 billion deal to build two nuclear reactors. North Korea diverts more aid to speed WMD program. Mass starvation reportedly continues.

• 2000: Despite continued breaches of the "agreed framework," Albright travels to Pyongyang, where she cheerfully clinks glasses with Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il. Media hail the meeting as a diplomatic masterstroke by Clinton.

• 2002: New York Times headline: "North Korea Says It Has A Program On Nuclear Arms."

That, essentially, brings us to where we are today. North Korea was conditioned in the '90s to believe that no matter how bad its behavior, or how egregious its human rights abuses, it would be rewarded and appeased. Any wonder it's acting as it is now?

Looking at this record, maybe Albright actually had it right. North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons and ever-more sophisticated ballistic missiles — including the Taepodong-2C launched this week — were indeed the result of five years of failed diplomacy by Albright, Carter Richardson...all of which rests at the feet of Clinton!!!

Madeline Halfbright anf other Clintonistas are just trying to cover their collectives arses for their stunning failures in North Korea. Their failed naive efforts of appeasment have led to the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea, and have led us to the point where Japan is considering PRE-EMPTIVE action to take out the missles.

"Clinton at least did something" axis of idiocy

It was WORSE than doing nothing. It gave North Korea the money and technology to develop weapons and missles.

On the ohter hand Bush was the one who organized the 6 country talks involving China, the only country with sufficient leverage over NK to stop them without military intervention.

But why consider facts when you have donk talking points that "it's all Bush's fault"?

As Tony as spokesperson for the Whitehouse, come 2008, I think Hillary will have some trouble! Yeah.

I didn't quite understsand axis criticism.

At least Clinton tried and failed so at least he's better than Bush who didn't do a damn thing?

First, I don't accept the premise that Bush hasn't done a damn thing. He tried and failed

Clinton and Bush are in the same position using difference approaches. Its not surprising really and its not the fault of Clinton or Bush. Its Kim Jong Ill

Axis of evil,who does GWB take on? Of the 3,the weakest militarily and the furthest from obtaining nuclear weapons. GWB attacked Iraq because the other 2 were much harder nuts to crack.
Since then,nothing but Bolton rhetoric.Now,when we need the capability of our armed forces,they're tied up in Iraq because there was no plan for what to do next.
Bush will go down not just as a failure,but an incompetent one as well. He'd have done better to fire Rumsfeld in late 2003 when it was evident,Rum-Dum-Dummy had failed to have a post war plan.
Oh,yeah,it's Clinton's fault all right.In your dreams.

Sil has it right, the problem is Kim Jong Il and something needs to be done. Here we have a real crackpot with real WMD and we're hamstrung to respond because of the mess in Iraq.

Bush Co needs to stop trying to distract us with the past and do something about the present. Clinton did it too, Clinton did worse is not an acceptible answer.

phnxbmed: thank you for that ‘list’. It's interesting to note that you either excluded the years BEFORE Clinton took office (Reagan / Bush years). Those three Republican Administrations hadn't done anything about it then either? I wouldn't be surprised.

We all know that since trigger-happy cowboy Bush took office 6 years ago(!), he has only done one thing: piss of Kim Young Ill, piss off Iran, piss off Venezuela. And now everybody is surprised that these countries are kickstarting there nucular arms capabilities...

It amazes me that anything that goes wrong in the Bush foreign policy arena can always be traced back to Bill Clinton's tenure. Is Bush responsible for anything? Isn't it pointless to deflect blame constantly on one's predecessor? It may make conservatives feel better momentarily over the failure of the Bush Doctrine, but its not a particularly honorable path to follow. Does anyone honestly feel safer now than they did in the Clinton years? As far as I can tell, Bush's one major accomplishment is that we have not been attacked again on our soil.

Almost immediately after Bush's inauguration in 2001, Dick Cheney, Wolfowitz and other neo-cons decided that North Korea was no longer their top foreign policy priority. They were following the Project for the New American Century which advocated increased military presence in areas of interest to the U.S. The Middle East qualified; North Korea did not. The problem was ignored and valuable time elapsed, time Kim Il Jung used to build up his arsenal-with aid from the Chinese. Now we are relying on six-party talks which include China and Russia-neither of which gives a damn about our security issues. Russia and China both want to regain superpower status, and our presence as the world's only superpower obstructs that goal. The talks will be just as fruitful as the talks with Iran. China and Russia will block any meaningful sanctions. Military action is precluded by Kim Il's large well-trained army of over one million, his short-range missiles aimed at Seoul, and his mid-range missiles aimed at Japan. Also our military is strained to the breaking point by a useless war in Iraq.

The lesson both N.Korea and Iran learned from Iraq was hurry and develop as many nukes as possible, because without them you are toast-with them-you are untouchable and will command the attention of the entire world.

Well, wattaya know, its Clinton's fault. I understand he was personally responsible for WWII also.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Random assortment of letters that start with p-

Didn't Bush just give Iran nuclear reactors?

Um, let me think for minute... Clinton was last president something like... 6 years ago - no? Laying the blame on Clinton, while Bush has been at the helm for these last 6 years, is pretty lame.

The fact is that the NK strategy followed by Clinton was essentially the same as Bush Sr's, Reagan's, Nixon's, and every other US president's for the last 50 years. Since NK is clearly a failed state on its last legs, a strategy of engaging NK in the way Nixon engaged Maoist China, was the proper course of action. Nixon and Kissinger understood that anything that exposes communist regimes more and more to the outside world only serves to undermine those governments - while isolating them only gives those regimes the strength to postpone their inevitable eventual collapse. Like the Bushians, these bankrupt regimes need to cultivate an external threat to remain politically viable. Ironically, Bush, Osama, and Kim Jong Il all need one another.

W's "tough guy" image, and his bluster towards NK for the last 6 years, was not formulated with input from military and diplomatic experts, but rather was cooked up by Karl Rove et al as political theater designed to win elections. The Bushians once again have used our national security as a tool for political gain here at home, and now we are paying the price. Bush is not running for any more elections, but he now has to deal with the consequences of subjugating a real foreign policy to his need to pump up his domestic image.

NK technology is obviously very primative, but it has made more progress towards developing nasty weapons and delivery systems in the last 6 years than it has in the 30 years before that. After all the tough guy bluster is said and done, you still have to come to the table and talk to the North. Obviously, we must maintain military pressure on NK - but tough posturing alone is a failed strategy.

He's had 6 years. In the face of failure to achieve anything vis-a-vis NK, the Bushians, like all cults, are doing what they always do: blame someone else. This should be dubbed the "no responsibility" administration. Or "The Buck Stops Elsewhere" administration.

sil... I wouldn't say the two approaches (although both were unable to stop Kim Jong Il) were therefore equal failures.

Bush's tactic may have failed, but Clinton's not only failed, but also vastly increased North Korea's ability to accomplish those things we'd hoped to prevent.

I don't think in this case that there was or is any way for us to diplomatically accomplish our goals (it's good to try, though, certainly), so I don't hold failure to succeed w/ diplomacy against either man, I do think it was a very poor idea to say "now don't do this, but hey... here's some stuff that would help you get there as long as you don't care about honoring our agreements, and the only consequence of your not doing so, should we find out, is for us to give you even more".

You leftist freaks don't want to deal with the fact that Clinton GAVE Kim Il Jung the MONEY & the TECHNOLOGY to build nuclear weapons.

Bush 1 didn't do this and neither did Bush 2. What is Bush supposed to do now, reverse time?What Clinton did is done, and now we have to deal with it.

In light of the development of nukes and missles by NK, Jimmy Carter's noble prize is an absolute JOKE, and Mad Albright is an embarassment.

And now you morons want to reward Kim Il Jung by what??? having us cancel the six party talks and have head to head talks with NK. I thought you were all against a unilateral approach to foreign policy.

BTW Willem:

What is your plan for dealing with North Korea, send them some Gouda or will it be tulips?

You think Bill Klintoon was bad? Just wait for Shrillary. Better yet, vote Republican!