There are a number of things I actually find offensive about today's lead editorial in the NY Times.

Movement on North Korea, Finally

The first is that it measures White House inaction on North Korea from the beginning of the Bush presidency, as if North Korea wasn't threatening to devolop nuclear weapons and develop it's missile program during the entire Clinton administration.

Secondly, it actually uses the word "action" as a synonym with the words "putting a proposal on the table". Waging war is an action. Enforcing sanctions is an action. Making a proposal is not an action, it's a declaration of a desire for action.

Now read this drivel:

But Kim Jong Il, the country's unpredictable dictator, has not yet decided how to respond to the American proposal. Rejecting it would be a mistake. North Korea can ensure a safer and more prosperous future for itself by coming to terms with Washington than it can by barricading itself behind a nuclear firewall while its economy disintegrates.

"Unpredictable"?!? Were Hitler or Saddam or Idi Amin "unpredictable"? Call him what he is - EVIL! Or MEGALOMANIAC if you prefer humanistic over religious terms. This guy is responsible for the starvation of hundreds of thousands if not millions of his own people and the Times describes him as "unpredictable". Madonna and Dennis Rodman are unpredictable.

Also, does the Times really think Kim gives a rat's a** about how his economy is doing? And even using the term "disintegrates" suggests that it is only recently that North Koreans have been doing badly and that maybe it's not so bad now.

Finally, I don't see the Times suggesting that North Korea do anything more than promise to abandon it's nuclear weapons.

But the new American proposal envisions a sensible two-stage process, which would start with the North acknowledging all its nuclear weapons programs and agreeing to give them up within three months. South Korea and other countries could start delivering badly needed fuel oil, and North Korea's security would be guaranteed during the disarmament period.

No inspection regime, no proof. This is the same thing that Clinton did and we're in the same boat, if not in a leakier boat. How can the Times trust a man like Kim Jong Il?

The Bush administration officials are geniuses because they know all they have to convince liberals that they're taking "action" is to put some words on a piece of paper and hold a press conference.