Stan, I share your view of North Korea. Yesterday I posted a nightmare scenario the Times’ Nicholas Kristof foresaw rapidly unfolding in North Korea, re: its nuclear program. It sounded very, very plausible to me. Some readers thought I was also agreeing with Kristof’s conclusion that the administration is somehow derelict for being so silent. Not so. What would Kristof have Bush & Co. say? We really are checkmated there, at least for now. Seems to me that public silence and quiet diplomacy, backed up with military maneuvering, is the least bad course, at least for right now. Believe it or not, there are still some people who think that because North Korea is more dangerous than Iraq, we are hypocrites for going after Iraq. Is it not obvious that the reason North Korea can throw its weight around now is because they acquired nuclear weapons? If Saddam were allowed to get them, we’d be checkmated there too.