Ah! North Korea

Remember when we were first alerted to a supposed 2nd nuclear program from our old buddies in North Korea?

It was October 2002.

I'd just like to use this post to think about the significance of that date.

Yes, just about 4 years ago.

October.

Just before a midterm election.

The last mid term election.

Kind like Osama popped up with a message in 2004.

In October.

Even many mainstream cartoonists show they are very suspicious about the timing of messages from Osama and/or his people. It's as if al Qaeda and the Bush administration had a special deal to keep each other in their respective places of power.

But North Korea?

Surely not North Korea.

But here it is October just before a mid term election.

I'm not saying that the Bush people and Kim Jung Il are any kinds of buddies, but something could have been sent on the quiet to the effect that deals could be made if NK kept the news media as busy as possible during the month of October.

October 2006.

Just before another mid term election.

What better October surprise to keep part of the news media busy than a threat to test a nuclear bomb.

Here I have a post about Rumsfeld's rumblings over NK and some analysis from Fred Kaplan who believes a cocktail party mumbling were an admission of a second nuclear program and that NK could produce a plutonium bomb.

Here's a post from our non beta Pendragn blog on an analysis by the late Jude Wanniski about NK and why he and Gordon Prather don't believe that NK has a 2nd nuclear program nor that they could produce the much more difficult (according to their assessment) plutonium bomb.

Though these men disagree on whether NK has a second nuclear program or could explode a plutonium weapon, they both agree that the Bush administration (thanks to our current UN ambassador John Bolton) thoroughly messed up even their feeble attempts to negotiate with and/or control North Korea.