The official news agency for North Korea reports the following:
Leader Kim Jong Il Tuesday received Joo Dong Mun, president of the Washington Times Corporation, on a visit to Pyongyang. On the occasion the president offered his congratulations to Kim Jong Il on the 60th anniversary of Korea’s liberation.
Kim Jong Il welcomed the Pyongyang visit of the president, had a cordial talk with him and posed for a photograph with him.
So, the Washington Times thinks its perfectly fine to wine, dine, and coddle dictators like Kim Jong Il while smearing Democrats as hostile to freedom?
on the 60th anniversary of Korea s liberation.
thats news to me…
Didn’t Senator Kerry meet with the North Vietnamese leaders after his return from the war ?
He did.
And certain people hollered “Treason!” How come we’re not hearing from those same folks now?
I think one substantive difference is that Senator Kerry was either in active duty, or in the Reserves, at the time, and in the process of beginning his political career. On the other hand, what you would compare that to is the leader of a private business. Apples and oranges.
I agree that it is wrong to have met with the freak boy from Korea. Were I in his position, I certainly would not have done so.
Did you have the same level of outrage when Dan Rather lobbed softballs to Saddam ?
What does being in the reserves have to with anything? This guy may have been in the reserves, what would be the damn difference? And why does one’s occupation matter at all if one is conducting the visit as a private person?
I find it particularly weird that the Washington Times did this. Sun Myung Moon fled Pyongang and has been an ardent commie hater ever since. This is like an anti-Castro newspaper sending an envoy to communist Cuba.
Didn t Senator Kerry meet with the North Vietnamese leaders after his return from the war ?
To compare Kerry’s meeting with NV leaders to the Times’ exec meeting with North Korean leaders, you must first ask why they were meeting. Without that basic understanding, your comparison is meaningless.
Kerry was in Paris to observe official negotiations between the South Vietnamese puppet government and the NV government. Apparently, his primary interest was securing the release of US POWs. These facts are left out of typical right-wing slime attacks against Kerry.
Why does a supposedly ‘anti-communist’ right-wing billionaire cuddle up to a ‘communist’ dictator? See for yourself. Labels like ‘democracy’ and ‘communism’ are meaningless to people (like Moon and Dubya) with messianic ambitions. They are just words thrown around to keep the unwashed masses in line.
Apparently you have not been in the service, nor do you known of the UCMJ.
Dan Rather interviewed Hussein, he didn’t bow and honor a dictator as the Washington Times has.
Nixon and Kissinger, righties to some extent, opened red China. Perhap the Washington Time will perform a service for mankind and “open” North Korea. Surely progressives wouldn’t mind that.
Dugger
Quaker, it’s funny the level of outrage shown to Dan Rather for interviewing Hussein, but there was no RW handwringing when REAGAN/BUSH sold them WMD’s. Interesting, isn’t it?
Eason Jordan also don’t think he’s the messiah unlike your cult leader friend. Point?
Unlike CNN’s Eason Jordan, who paid Saddam Hussein for “access” to propaganda produced by his regime, it appears that the Times did not pick up the tab for this event.
Geostrategic concerns predicated our relationship with China. From a realist perspective, it made sense to cozy up to China because of its proximity to the USSR. Similar circumstances do not exist in NK. Therefore, it would be wrong to open up to North Korea, from either a realist or a moral perspective.
“Similar circumstances do not exist in NK.”
True, China is/was a lot bigger and much more dangerous. But if we could bring, say, the Mideast into the 20th century by playing ping pong or whatever, it would beat whats happening now. N. Korea looks about to be the last really ideologically blinded-mindless, potentially dangerous dictatorship out there. Major combat in Iraq was a cake walk compared to what would be required in NK. I’m for any and all steps that open them up – whether from Rev Moon or Soleil Moon Frye.
Dugger
Major combat in Iraq was a cake walk compared to what would be required in NK.
Was?
Yes. Major combat “was”.