WaPo is highly hypocritical in this regard. Yes. There is plenty of blame to go around for the foolish and naive behavior of the State Department re: handling of NK under both the can-kicking Obama and Trump Administrations, more-so of course in the former case—as well as under Clinton and Bush-2 as well. Much of this has been an outright disaster, a clusterf at best, and thank goodness there are some good and courageous souls directing and within the NSC these days that are trying to reverse course on this folly—but it’s not an easy task.
Your take on this in #26 and #28 feels pretty spot on. Time will tell, I expect.