Posted on 06/10/2018 5:37:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- On the first day of June, President Donald Trump invited Kim Yong Chol, North Korea's second-most powerful official, into the Oval Office where they talked at length and posed for photos. Afterward, Trump shook Kim's hand before reporters.
If President Barack Obama had extended a hand to Kim Yong Chol in this manner, it's hard to imagine Republicans not accusing the Democrat of a flagrant act of appeasement.
Ahead of the Singapore summit scheduled for June 12, Pyongyang already can claim a good public relations get. And it didn't help that Trump looked a little too eager to dance with the head of the hermit kingdom, Kim Jong Un. "The Art of the Deal" looked particularly artless.
Kim Yong Chol is not your usual button-down diplomat. He is the former head of North Korea's top spy agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, and the man Seoul blames for a 2010 torpedo attack on a South Korean navy ship that killed 46.
U.S. officials also blame Kim Yong Chol for the worst cyber attack on U.S. soil, an attack against Sony in retaliation for the 2014 farcical movie "The Interview," about a TV newsman and his producer who land an interview with the North Korean leader.
After the big hack, Washington banned Kim Yong Chol from traveling in the United States. Foggy Bottom had to issue a special dispensation to allow him to travel to New York last week to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a session that led to the Oval Office sit-down.
Obama Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Kim Yong Chol's visit to the White House provides "a good example of how unconventional and norm-breaking" the Singapore summit is. Tauscher has long warned that with or without a deal, Kim Jong Un wins a summit simply because it boosts his global image.
Long-time hawks have reason to scowl as well.
At a Foundation for the Defense of Democracies panel, Bruce Klingner of the conservative Heritage Foundation compared Trump's grip-and-grin photo op with Kim Yong Chol to a 2009 episode involving an American delegation in North Korea. In that instance, former President Bill Clinton told his team not to smile when they arrived in Pyongyang to free two American journalists who had been imprisoned for illegally entering the country.
"It's fine to meet with senior officials. That's why also we have diplomats," Klingner said, adding that there are ramifications.
Other world leaders see Trump shaking hands with the guy responsible for at least 46 deaths in South Korea, and behind the largest cyber attack on U.S. soil, and they wonder why we should enforce sanctions if Washington rolls out the welcome mat to a high-ranking official from a hostile government not allowed to travel here.
"If your standard is you can't meet with this despicable person in North Korea, you're never going to be able to meet with a North Korean," countered Anthony Ruggiero of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who found Trump's statements outside the White House to be "far more damaging."
Ruggiero was referring to Trump's response to a reporter's question about whether the administration's "maximum pressure" sanctions campaign against North Korea was over.
"It's going to remain what it is now," Trump replied, but then added, "I don't even want to use the term 'maximum pressure' anymore ... because we're getting along."
Getting along? That undercuts the use of "maximum pressure" as a means to further isolate Kim Jong Un.
At the Rose Garden with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday, Trump told reporters, "If you hear me say we're going to use maximum pressure, you'll know the negotiation did not do well."
It wasn't that long ago that news stories about Trump and his North Korean counterpart focused on the war of words between the two temperamental heads of state. Kim Jong Un called Trump a "mentally deranged US dotard" and Trump called Kim "little Rocket Man" as he threatened "fire and fury."
At the end of the next week, if the summit comes across as a feel-good exercise with no denuclearization in sight, will the Twitter feud feel like the good old days?
Debra does not like President Trump. That is all you need to know. Do not waste your time reading her trash.
“If President Barack Obama had extended a hand to Kim Yong Chol in this manner...” First, Obama could only kowtow. Second, iIf Trump can confound Debra this easily, there’s the possibility that something good can come out of this conference.
I stopped reading here because, like so many in the news media, she just won't be honest. Obama handshaking with kings is one thing, but bowing down before them the way Obama did is quite another.
These Progressives, who do nothing but smash and trash President Trump, will be wondering why, once again, how he got re elected. Go Trump!
Everything Obama did diplomatically was based on weakness and loathing of America. Trump is just opposite. Trump’s detractors chronicly under estimate him.
Cash those checks Debra, next stop working the parking lot of a New Jersey truck stop.
Debra may be a loser, I have no doubt she is, but those in the article cited, like Klingner, Ruggiero and others (from the conservative think tank), are SOLID. FYI.
Sanders is a GOPe forever. She has never liked Trump. Frankly she should change her claims to being conservative
>>If President Barack Obama had extended a hand to Kim Yong Chol in this manner, it’s hard to imagine Republicans not accusing the Democrat of a flagrant act of appeasement.
This is because we know, based on experience, that the Democrat DOES intend to appease. We also know, based on experience, that Trump DOES plan to deal—and deal to get a win-Win (that’s a win for you and a Win for me).
Trump does not enter into a conversation with a foreign leader begging for forgiveness for all the evil that America does. He does not walk in throwing all his cards on the table, and throwing his best cards in the trash. He knows that you have to be ready to walk away from a bad deal, writing off sunk costs whether they are monetary or reputation.
There is no other person who could be President and have the kind of negotiation that is required for NK.
As they say, “Only Nixon could go to China”. Only Trump can go to NK.
It is actually funny, after Leftists tried to ‘negotiate’ and run foreign policy by doing things like giving away cash to countries who likely used it to fund terrorism or build nuclear weapons (N. Korea under Clinton and Iran under Obama) they have no standing to be taken seriously.
Yes. Those future potential fat defense contracts. Down. The. Drain.
Debra just makes things up. Idiot!! That’s not news...that’s pure fiction.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. That also happens to be the same definition of a form of stupidity.
PDJT has done something no US president has tried to do. We’ve been all bluster “with huff and a puff I’ll blow your house down”. Trump goes in there with the attitude ‘Do you want to learn how to build a better house’?
I think of the speech between Ten Bears and Josey Wales at the end of the movie “The outlaw Josey wales”.
But alas, I think they’re going to set Trump up in an embarrassing controversy regarding the talks or positions. It’s the chinese way of things.
F#ckless c*nt.
Too eager, too lazy, too this, too that... Libs are worried sick. Trump does too much that pleases too many of the wrong people. You know. People with jobs and families and homes. Those idiots.
Not stately and reserved like when Mdadeliene Albright went stumbling and galloping after after Yasir Arafat begging him to return to her negotiations after he abruptly walked out on her and was driving away in a limo.
Or when Barack Obama and John Kerry were so desperate to make a bad deal with Iran that they payed the Iranians off with a $400 million dollar secret ransom and lied to Americans about the payoff and the content of the deal.
If a democrat wrote a book on negotiating as Trump did it would be entitled "THE ART OF THE BAD DEAL"
I came here to live in peace or die with you, here and now.
It shall be life.
Opinion writer for San Fran Cronicle
If President Barack Obama had extended a hand to Kim Yong Chol in this manner, it’s hard to imagine Republicans not accusing the Democrat of a flagrant act of appeasement.
—
So she just makes something up and then wraps an article around it.
Well, come to think about it, that’s no different from what the rest of the press does, except they used to try and hide it.
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