Speaking of Dubya's policy initiatives, his crew has a new diplomatic approach towards North Korea, offering aid in return for disarmament. And folks from the River in Egypt Party will surely be along any time now to explain how it differs from the Clinton policy of "appeasement." The Poor Man offers his own take:

Good thing we didn't do this three years ago! That would have been appeasement! Now, however, no one can accuse the Bush Administration of submitting to blackmail, because the North Koreans are going to look at this offer for a few weeks, gaze lovingly at their growing nuclear arsenal, review what folks are offering them to sign on to the Nuke-of-the-Month Club, and tell us to go fuck ourselves. They will do this because they can, and because there's nothing we can really do about it.

Or, he goes on, if we're really lucky, we get back the status quo ante Dubya, except that instead of maybe one or two carefully hidden nuclear warheads, the psychotic North Korean regime has maybe a dozen. If we're lucky.

Isn't it nice to have the grownups in charge?