The Folly of Fools

Liberal folly was on full display today in an editorial in the Boston Globe entitled “The North Korean Test.” The editorial staff of a paper from the state that keeps giving us Ted Kennedy and John Kerry said that the current North Korean crisis “represents the most preventable, and one of the most damaging, failures of President Bush’s foreign policy. The administration has stubbornly rebuffed the North’s offers to cede its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for economic and security benefits in direct, two-party negotiations . . . North Korea has repeatedly declared that it is willing to divest itself of its nuclear weapons capabilities for the right price. That price would include a guaranteed provision of energy . . . and also economic and security assurances that would end what the North calls the relations of ‘enmity’ between it and the United States.” (Italics added)

There is so much wrong with this statement that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Firstly, North Korea has already reneged on its promise to use nuclear power only for peaceful purposes. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. What on earth would possess anyone to think that North Korea would honor any new agreements? Secondly, the North Korean crisis is just one more Democrat mess that President Bush has to clean up. He is not the reason that North Korea might now be a nuclear power, and he should not be blamed for the belligerent actions of its leader. Thirdly, what exactly is the definition of “economic and security benefits.” What exactly is “the right price?”

North Korea is blackmailing us, and the Boston Globe thinks we should pay. Once we start paying, when would we stop? The answer to that is never. And once we knuckle under to one country’s extortion, who will be next? It is beyond frightening that there are people who in this country who actually think that appeasement is the right course. What’s even more frightening is that these people might once again be at the helm of this country.

Whoever believes that buying off North Korea is the right course, then let them pay.