Powerline's at it Again

The spin-masters over at Powerline are doing their best to the lay the blame for our current North Korea predicament at the feet of anyone but Bush:

If we had a shot, it was back in the mid-1990s when North Korea was just getting started. Our failure to take meaningful action and to hide instead behind the "agreed framework" is another piece of President Clinton's legacy and another item in President Carter's disgraceful resume.

Not surprisingly, however, the reality of the situation does not comport altogether comfortably with Powerline's version of events. As Slate's Fred Kaplan carefully explained back in May 2004, Bush screwed this one up in pretty much the same manner he's screwed everything else up:

The pattern of decision making that led to this debacle--as described to me in recent interviews with key former administration officials who participated in the events--will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Bush and his cabinet in action. It is a pattern of wishful thinking, blinding moral outrage, willful ignorance of foreign cultures, a naive faith in American triumphalism, a contempt for the messy compromises of diplomacy, and a knee-jerk refusal to do anything the way the Clinton administration did it.

Posted by Kingston