It’s a rather technical matter. And I’m not sure how much attention it will garner since the issue hasn’t gotten that much attention in the US press. But one of the notable things in the debate was that President Bush didn’t seem to have any really clear idea what his administration’s North Korea policy even is.
To a degree that’s understandable since the policy has been muddled and divided from the beginning. But even taking a charitable view, taking the present policy on its own terms, President Bush couldn’t seem to explain it more clearly than to say that it’d be bad to have bilateral talks with the North Koreans because then the Chinese wouldn’t help us or else that it wouldn’t be fair to the Chinese.
