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Historic Snooker
The headline writers adore the word “historic.” It was ubiquitous in reporting on the April meeting between Kim Jung Un and Moon Jae-in. Kim shook Moon’s hand and then guided him over the military demarcation line to step onto North Korean territory. This prompted swoons. What rot. If that was a bona fide gesture of peaceful intent, time will tell. In the meantime, let’s assume it was a stunt.
So too with the summit between Kim Jung Un and Donald Trump, though in this case the media hype couldn’t compete with Mr. Trump’s own. He has basked in talk of a Nobel Peace Prize and predicted that he and the butcher of Pyongyang were “going to have a great discussion and a terrific relationship.” Obviously panting for a meeting, Trump was reportedly livid with National Security Advisor John Bolton, whose May comments about a “Libya solution” to the nuclear weapons problem apparently spooked Kim into withdrawing from the summit. Trump insisted that it was he who canceled, just as he did with the Philadelphia Eagles’ White House visit.
But he showed quite a lot of ankle in his note. “I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me,” he cooed, closing with words conceding that it was Kim, not Trump, who had actually canceled. “If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write.” Kim reeled in his catch. He sent an oversized letter Trump could pose with, grinning like a winner of the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes.
Why is our president smiling? You can always argue that democratic leaders must treat with dictators and even villains of various stripes for the sake of winning a war or securing the peace. You can even argue that sometimes presidents flatter unsavory leaders to build trust and ease tensions. But no historical comparisons can illuminate Trump’s ricochets between hysterical threats (“fire and fury”) and pusillanimous praise (“very talented”) without any substantive change on the part of the dictator. What has changed since the State of the Union address in which Trump honored the memory of Otto Warmbier and detailed the atrocities of the North Korean regime? In gratitude for the exchange of pleasantries, the release of a few hostages, and vague offers of “denuclearization” Trump has made himself Kim’s doormat.
As a matter of substance, the Singapore summit achieved less than nothing. It was a profound defeat for U.S. world influence and for democratic decency, arguably the worst summit outcome since Yalta. Kim promised to consider “denuclearization,” exactly as his father and grandfather had done repeatedly over the past several decades – breaking their promises each and every time. For this puff of cotton candy, Trump agreed to halt “U.S. war games” (using the North Korean term for joint military exercises with South Korea) which Trump himself called provocative! He invited Kim to the White House. He also issued the risible tweet announcing, ahem, peace in our time: “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”
It’s difficult to determine just how stupid Trump thinks the American people are. But there is no question that Trump’s affection for strongmen and thugs, evident before in his praise of the Chinese murderers of Tiananmen, and his warm words for Putin, Duterte, and Xi, has now extended to the worst tyrant/killer on the planet. Trump did far more than overlook Kim’s atrocious human rights abuses, he became Kim’s PR man. “he’s a very talented man and I also learned he loves his country very much.” He has a “great personality” and is “very smart.”
Trump granted Kim’s legitimacy: “His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor.”
In 2014, a United Nations report concluded that North Korea’s crimes against humanity “entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”
What of all that? Trump is understanding, even impressed. “Hey, he’s a tough guy. When you take over a country — a tough country, tough people — and you take it over from your father, I don’t care who you are, what you are, how much of an advantage you have. If you can do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that. So he’s a very smart guy. He’s a great negotiator.”
What was Trump’s chief argument in 2016? The U.S. had been the victim of “bad deals,” with other countries and he was the great deal maker. He fingered the Iran deal as the worst deal in history. His defenders will excuse the truckling to Kim as a clever gambit to extract concessions. But Kim has offered absolutely nothing. All of the concessions have come from the United States, including the most crucial one – we’ve put ourselves on the same moral plane as North Korea. That’s what Make America Great Again has achieved.
Published in Foreign Policy
And I am amazed – not necessarily surprised – that you cannot (or refuse to) see the difference between criticizing that a summit has taken place, and the aftermath. Leaders have summits. It is the disgusting way Mr. Trump chose to ingratiate himself in the wake of that get together. Kim had an American citizen killed called for stealing a poster; he starves his people; he even murdered his own family members. You are completely muddying the waters if you can’t see that it is the language that Trumps used to flatter this ruthless and evil man that people like Mona and I, and others, take exception to, not the summit itself.
I may be wr0ng, but I think Bush said he was wrong. And the worse you can say about it is Bush was idiocally carried away. He is a good man, who made a huge mistake in this case. But he never said that Putin didn’t do bad things. You just can’t excuse Trump, and it is folly to try.
This kind of condescension is even worse than hatred.
Disgusting!
My point was and is that our side never let up on Obama for his horribles actions. Now Trump does even worse, and is lionized by some.
Worse?
George do you really believe the President got historically snookered ?
Other than his over the top rhetoric to Kim.
To quote the third greatest President in our history: “There you go again.” I never said, nor implied, that he got snookered. It is a judgment that needs time to determine. What I say is that his words (which it is generous to call over the top) will, in my judgment, do nothing to reform North Korea. Evil does not change because of nice words, and Trump is showing his none-understanding of the world by thinking they can.
Please …. “worse than hatred” …. grab hold of your senses man.
In all fairness to Mona, her TDS is less severe as compared to other conservatives (Rick Wilson, Ralph Peters, Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, to name a few) whom I also sincerely like … other than their skewed analysis of anything Trump.
And I freely agree Trump is many of the things those who dislike him proclaim. My critique of those TDS stricken conservatives is: OK …. Trump bad….. now what?
What is TDS end game.
Once I concur with your Trump is bad analysis what do I do with it?
My take on Trump is to get as much conservative(or not Lefty) administrative and legislative reform as is possible until the elective pendulum swings the other way, which it inevitably will, with or without Trump.
This essentially a meaningless criticism. It’s what you complain about when you have nothing else.
Well, I went there again because of what I thought you said.
The title of Moana’s piece was
You can’t have it both ways. However, you have made yourself clear.
Hope you can see how I misunderstood you.
I happen to think that condescension is worse than hatred. If you’d think about it, you’d realize I am right. If you ever say anything like that I should get a hold of my senses again, I will be gone!
To answer the rest of the statement: If enough people were like me, Trump might realize he is going down an incendiary path. Of course he probably wouldn’t, but we need his conservative critics to remind that our ideology is about more than just policy.
Why?
The left would prefer that all of those out of favor are treated like non-persons. You must shun! And if you don’t, it’s guilt-by-association. They leave no room for constructive engagement, because that grants “legitimacy.” Jimmy Kimmel interviews the President and the left cries “Oh noes! He granted him legitimacy!” The President met with Li’l Kim and that gave him “legitimacy.” It doesn’t mean anything. “Legitimacy.” What is Kim gonna do with that? Spend it on hookers and blow?
Consolidate his power internally in his own country through propaganda. Use it to engage more broadly with other countries in the world.
There’s a reason many of us criticized Obama for meeting with the leadership of Cuba or Iran with no preconditions. I’m taking a wait and see approach on this event since it could still work out, but lets not pretend that this isn’t something we found fault with the previous administration.
Glad you are being reasonable, Kevin.
For the record, I do not remember if Mona used to the word in her column. She does not write them for Ricochet. It is a syndicated column that goes out to numerous newspapers (I forget the number; hundreds I think). Others put that name to the column. I am not sure she would have used “snookered”.
The “grab hold of your senses” was meant in jest to make light of your “worse than hatred” because it is in fact way overstated.
I believe the Trump Presidency to date illustrates how conservative pro-growth policy can succeed without regard to the character of the individual who administers the policy. Lower taxes, less regulation, and policy which encourages the harvesting and production of fossil fuels will in fact produce economic growth no matter which party is in office or which individual is the sitting President.
“I’m kidding!” the president said. “You don’t understand sarcasm!” President Donald Trump, a bit later.
Sure he did.
Pardon me for filling out the picture. And for lacking your power to read minds.
I mean it’s not like he’s heaped obsequious praise on dictators before…
Trump on President Xi of China: “He’s an incredible guy. You know, essentially president for life. That’s pretty good.”
Trump on Putin: “He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country. I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, a lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity.”
Trump on Putin: “If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him. I’ve already said, he is really very much of a leader. I mean, you can say, ‘Oh, isn’t that a terrible thing’—the man has very strong control over a country. Now, it’s a very different system, and I don’t happen to like the system. But certainly, in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.”
Trump on Rodrigo Duarte: “I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem.” (the unbelievable job he’s talking about is the extra-judicial murders of suspected drug users and dealers)
Trump on Erdogan: “Frankly, he’s getting very high marks. He’s also been working with the United States. We have a great friendship and the countries—I think we’re right now as close as we’ve ever been … a lot of that has to do with a personal relationship.”
Trump on al-Sissi: “We agree on so many things. I just want to let everybody know in case there was any doubt that we are very much behind President el-Sisi. He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt. The United States has, believe me, backing, and we have strong backing.” (a man currently committing human rights abuses in his own country after seizing power in a coup)
Oh and then there’s this:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/703900742961270784
I find the common argument that no President from Eisenhower to Obama has ever agreed to meet with North Korean leadership! unpersuasive. Is “business as usual” what we want? If we feel that no progress is being made, should we continue to take the same approach? How has this helped? It hasn’t. The situation has worsened.
I’m sure that a constant state of agitation with NK benefits someone, but I’m not convinced it benefits us. So why not try a different approach? Why not engage? We can’t do worse than we’ve already done, which is nothing. And doing nothing has gotten us to the point where the Norks are developing Nukes.
What’s the argument for following the same path that got us here?
I think we all understand that you are a very materialistic person, which is your right.
By the way, to believe that condescension is worse than hatred is a well thought-out formulation, which indicats the ability to think about things in a more than superficial way. Because you disagree with it is no reason to make fun of it. It speaks volumes about you.
Have a g00d life.
Because Kim was aaaaaaaaaalmost going to be overthrown before Trump came and ruined everything!
Quite right.
Conservatives reasonably – even notoriously – prefer to follow old paths, but even the most hidebound person will eventually realize that tried-and-failed is not the same as tried-and-true.
Long-term problems require either experimentation or acceptance of failure.
Whew, it’s a good thing I didn’t say that…
Is ‘I think we all understand that you are a very materialistic person,’ the sort of thing you want to write on the same thread that you stated your belief that condescension is worse than hatred?
What is the connection?
Condescension for me but not for thee.