California Conservative

Last night, I predicted responses from Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean blaming President Bush for the NoKo nuclear test. Here’s proof:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid today released the following statement on reports that North Korea has conducted its first nuclear test:
“The reckless and counterproductive actions taken by North Korea must be condemned. The Bush Administration and the international community must ensure that North Korea understands the consequences of its actions. The first step toward ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program must be to ensure that this alleged first nuclear test is also the last.
“Unfortunately, on the Bush Administration’s watch, North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has grown to as many as a dozen bombs. Distracted by Iraq and paralyzed by internal divisions, the Bush Administration has for several years been in a state of denial about the growing challenge of North Korea, and has too often tried to downplay the issue or change the subject. Now the White House must rally the international community and must directly speak with the North Koreans so they understand we will not continue to stand on the sidelines.
“I urge the president to immediately appoint a senior official to conduct a full review of his administration’s failed North Korea policy, develop recommendations to change course, and directly communicate to the North Koreans the consequences of their actions and the administration’s new course. On North Korea as in other national security policies, the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have made America less secure. It is time for a new direction.”

Sen. Reid’s chutzpah notwithstanding, he actually makes a point worth exploiting. He said that the Bush administration was “distracted by Iraq”. Considering how important it was to remove a state sponsor of terrorism, I’d say that’s a worthwhile ‘distraction’. On the other hand, Sen. Reid’s statement inadvertantly points out that Bill Clinton gave the NoKo’s the nuclear technology in a time of supposed peace and prosperity. What’s Clinton’s excuse? He was ‘irrationally exhuberant’ over the great economy he inherited? It couldn’t have been that Monica thing because that didn’t happen until later.

It seems to me that Clinton just messed this thing up with all the time in the world to make a simple decision. He failed us miserably, not because he was distracted but because he was a foreign policy failure relying on a pair of other Democratic foreign policy failures named Warren Christopher and Jimmy Carter.

As for Sen. Reid’s call for a so-called “new direction”, no thanks. I prefer having a sane man in charge of policy, not someone who ignores the world’s problems. In other words, I prefer an adult in charge, not a Democrat.

UPDATE: This AP article is a decent roundup of the assinine statement made by Democrats on the North Korea nuclear test.

“We had the opportunity to stop North Korea from increasing its nuclear power, but George Bush went to sleep at the switch while he pursued his narrow agenda in Iraq,” added Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat in a tough campaign in New Jersey.

Sen. Menendez doesn’t quite explain how “We had the opportunity to stop North Korea from increasing its nuclear power.” That’s because this is just Democrats’ attempt to distract America from their frightful record of foreign policy failures.

Technorati Tags: Harry Reid, Bill Clinton, North Korea, Jimmy Carter

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Monday, October 9th, 2006 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Liberals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.