We sort of expect liberal ex-presidents (think Jimmy Carter) to conduct personal diplomacy for humanitarian purposes. But that said, and apart from the general euphoria of having two Americans returned from the clutches of a nightmarish regime, there are some troubling issues here.
One, Bill Clinton is not just an ex-president and private citizen, but also the husband of the current secretary of state. Like it or not, that status lends a quasi-official air to anything that he does abroad. So we must ask of his trip to North Korea: What were the quid pro quos involved, and did the short-term gain of freeing two journalists justify the concession of meeting publicly with a blood-soaked tyrant who has become even more dangerous in his nuclear brinksmanship?
Two, there is something untoward about Al Gore’s murky role in all this. Gore seemingly used his insider contacts with the Clintons (and, by extension, with the Obama administration) to rescue two employees of a company in which he has a large stake — a company that foolishly sent two of its journalists into the territory of a belligerent regime. In the future, will President Clinton go to Iran, or back to North Korea, if employees of particular corporations are kidnapped? We can understand his good intentions when lives are at stake, but the precedent established here is disturbing.
Three, at some point, the Obama administration should stop insisting, “Wow, we’re out of the loop in all this.” No one believes that a former Democratic president and spouse of the secretary of state would do any diplomatic freelancing without the current Democratic president (his wife’s boss) being briefed. And again, like it or not, we know that concessions from the criminal government in Pyongyang do not come for free. Clinton’s action was the high-level diplomatic equivalent of appeasing terrorists who kidnap in hopes of humiliating the United States. We should remember that North Korea has a long history of abducting foreign citizens for nefarious ends.
All in all, something just does not seem right about this. I think that as the dust clears, there will be some real outrage. I recall Gen. Matthew Ridgway’s warning after negotiating with North Korean warlords and commissars some 56 years ago: “To [the North Korean] Communists the use of courtesy on your part is synonymous with concessions and concessions with a sure indication of weakness.”