More Finger Pointing

I see where the GOP, particularly, John McCain has decided that the North Korean fiasco is really the fault of President Clinton. Two thoughts -- 1) Bill Clinton stopped being President in 2000. It is now 2006. It really doesn't look good to reach that far back to place blame. In fact it looks weak. 2) As I recall, President Clinton threatened to put 37,000 troops on the ground and 400 planes in the air in S. Korea if N. Korea did not put their nuclear rods back in their reactors where they could not cause any harm. He put a 250 man expeditionary force there to show he was serious. North Korea tucked away their nuclear ambitions.

In 2000, Colin Powell announced he was going to continue the dialogue with N. Korea with any eye toward a permanent non proliferation deal. The very next day he had to retract that statement because the Bush Administration announced there would be no negotiating with North Korea. (A fact that greatly embarassed the President of our ally, S. Korea, as he had gotten a Nobel Prize for his policy of open dialogue with the North).

Was Clinton right? Don't know. Would the same gambit work now? Don't know. Would Powell have succeeded? Don't Know. But I do know that there is really no way you can hang any of this mess on President Bill Clinton.