One of the silliest criticisms leveled against John Bolton is that he doesn’t get along with the North Korean government.
I am continually stunned by liberals’ sublime willingness to provide conservatives with evidence to suit our points. The left-leaning punditocracy feigned outrage over the stories of several writers being paid by the federal government to advance certain Republican ideas, but it should have been the other way around; Martians arriving from their home planet would surely believe that George Bush is paying liberal writers to oppose conservatives. How else would we get such great material?
Reflect on the fact that Molly Ivins’ current argument against John Bolton is that the North Koreans don’t like him. To recap: the North Koreans are what we call “Communists,” or, “the enemy.” Great sentience is not required to grasp that point — unless of course you happen to have served in the Clinton White House.
The last liberal staking out the pro-Communist position was John Kerry, whom the North Koreans heartily endorsed. Some conservatives think this was because Kerry was soft on national security, but I think it was probably Kerry’s salt-and-pepper bouffant that attracted Kim Jong Il. God knows, he’s one dictator who could use a good barber.
The election’s over, but apparently the affection for Communism hasn’t quite subsided. At least that’s what Molly Ivins seems to indicate. “After dealing with Bolton,” she writes, “the North Korean government called him ‘human scum’ and ‘a bloodsucker,’ and declined to recognize him as an official of the United States.” And if any group can judge character, it’s the government of axis-of-evil nation North Korea!
Ivins rushes to make up for her atrocious statement by claiming that “[n]o one” — other than Molly Ivins, apparently — “is claiming North Korea has a rational government, but any halfway-skilled diplomat could do better than that, and many have — including Bill Richardson.”
As a fun experiment to prove Ivins wrong, I think we should start employing her point in all aspects of American life. Was The Da Vinci Code a good read? Call Pyongyang! Are iPods worth the money? Get Dictator Kim! What’s a five-letter proper noun meaning “idiot liberal commentator from Texas?” Phone the Commies immediately!
I think it would be useful to figure out where liberals draw the line when it comes to supporting the enemy. We see from Ivins’ column that some people think it’s okay to let our sworn enemies help formulate our foreign policy. Fine. But what about terrorists? If Osama didn’t like Bolton, what would Molly Ivins say? When will liberals map out exactly which enemies they like, and which they oppose?
It’s not incidental to my point that just as Ms. Ivins was writing her column, North Korea was publicly asserting its nuclear prowess. Liberals get huffy when some guy in Montana buys a pistol for the shooting range, but a Communist nation expanding its nuke arsenal doesn’t faze them.
According to Australia’s Daily Telegraph, “North Korea’s military chief has vowed to ‘steadily bolster’ the Stalinist nation’s nuclear deterrent as a result of hostile moves by the United States.”
“In a deepening nuclear crisis, Kim Yong-Chun, chief of the general staff of the North Korean People’s Army, warned the United States that it would face any aggression head on.” To boot, Kim Yong-Chun doesn’t like John Bolton, either.
It turns out there are a lot of things North Koreans don’t like — freedom, for example. What they do like is Bloomberg headlines like the one that appeared on April 26: “North Korea Says U.N. Sanctions a `Declaration of War.’” (You can tell Communists are behind the times when they’re still taking the United Nations seriously.)
Apparently Mo Dowd read the Ivins column, because she definitely played copycat a few days later. “Who doesn’t want to see” Bolton, she asked sarcastically, “outrage North Korea by calling Kim Jong Il a fat, maniacal munchkin?”
How come Dowd can label a wartime president the “Boy King,” but she gets upset when Bolton forgets to send flowers to some Commie thug in Asia? Why are liberals more concerned with tearfully commemorating the anniversary of Abu Ghraib than condemning Soviet-style governance in North Korea? If John Bolton decided tomorrow that Kim was a swell fellow with great ideas and a top-notch wardrobe, would liberals favor Bolton’s nomination?
Bolton will probably be confirmed, and North Korea probably won’t like it. Neither will American liberals. Once again, they’ll fall on the side of evil. How will North Korea feel about that?
isterrett@hotmail.com
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