Kristof's Anti-Bush Crusade

NY Times Op-Ed writer Nick Kristof can't write a column without bashing President George W. Bush. Unless of course, he is busy saving Cambodian prostitutes by buying their freedom. What a nice guy he is, saving non-White prostitutes like a White Knight on his steed. What an asshole.

Anyway, Kristof's latest anti-Bush diatribe takes place in the context of an Op-Ed piece on Chinese supreme leader Hu Jintao, where after some careful analysis and fact-finding, he comes to the conclusion that Hu is...a dictator! Um, make that an authoritarian. And a Communist!

Mr. Hu appears to be an intuitive authoritarian who believes in augmenting the tools of repression, not easing them. [snip] His economic instincts run to central planning, but he is also pragmatic.

Absolutely brilliant! Of course, Hu's worst crimes are those pertaining to the abuse of brave reporters and heroic journalist-types. Nevermind the thousands of political prisoners murdered by the Chinese Communist regime, or the slave labor camps that produce death and products for export.

But as far as dictators go, Hu isn't so bad. Rather, Kristof thinks he just lacks vision. And why not throw a jab at Bush, while you are at it:

In any case, while Mr. Hu is a big disappointment in his political vision, he is turning out to be more solid in other areas, like foreign policy. Mr. Hu has done a good job managing foreign relations with other countries, aside from Japan and Sudan, and he has engaged North Korea more meaningfully on the nuclear issue than his predecessors did. Mr. Hu has at least managed to work out a coherent policy toward North Korea, which the Bush administration has yet to do.

China's policy is clear to anyone who understands the nature of the Chinese Communist regime: Continue to prop-up the North Korean dictatorship as to maximize the pain to the US, while pretending to act in good faith towards disarmament. That's Kristof's "coherent" policy.

From the NY Times, we go to the Christian Science Monitor, which is a vastly underrated newspaper. People like Kristof are probably repulsed by the "Christian" moniker in its name, so it probably goes unread by the likes of the mainstream media. But leave it to the CSM to refute Kristof's claim to the Bush administration's lack of a North Korean policy.

Both [Iran and North Korea] were caught covering up their nuclear programs in recent years, breaking international agreements. That makes the prospect of a negotiated deal all the more difficult to achieve, let alone enforce.

And that's why the Bush administration has relied on nations with more economic leverage - China in the case of North Korea, and Britain, Germany, and France in the case of Iran - to take the lead in persuading the two recalcitrants to back down.

US impatience over these situations, which is driven by its post-9/11 fear of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, has yet to be transformed into preemptive military action - although the US Navy is on the ready to inspect ships leaving North Korea that might be exporting nuclear materials.

Yet military action seems out of the question, for any number of reasons. It also seems unlikely that each nation's leaders will be persuaded to give up their strong nationalist urges to achieve nuclear capability.

The best choices for the US and others seem to be in making good on economic threats or simply accepting that Iran, North Korea, and many of their neighbors will go nuclear.

And that, Kristof, is how Bush plans to deal with North Korea (with apologies to Elmo's World). And by the way, at least one of Kristof's two freed prostitutes resumed her old ways after the reporter went back home in Business Class.