Kim to Kerry: You Got Punk’d!

James Lileks’s excellent blog quotes an MTV interview with John Kerry. We’ve heard a lot of tired cliches about toothless, inbred Nascar Republicans; surely we should be just as worried when people encourage perky MTV airheads to pull a voting lever. In fact, we should give some serious thought to buying ads on MTV to explain that registering to vote requires you to go through a complex, drawn-out licensing process, complete with a civics examination, urinalysis, and the donation of a randomly-selected organ. MTV makes a great case that there’s no political monopoly on stupidity. Which brings us to Kerry–who at least knows where his voters are–and who can’t wait to be punk’d by Kim Jong-Il:

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KERRY: For instance, North Korea, George Bush didn’t even negotiate, didn’t even begin the process for two years. I would never not open the process of real dialogue to see what the possibilities are.

LILEKS (moving in for the kill): The government of North Korea is made up of liars and thieves who are starving millions of their own people to prop up a crime gang. They rolled us once. There is no profit in �opening up the process of real dialogue to see what the possibilities are� when you know that the process will result in the same old deals: give us oil and food so we can feed our army and keep building nukes while we insist that we�re not. I heard this line back in the 80s, over and over again: it was important to talk to the Soviets, to have lots of summits and sign lots of papers, because at least we�re talking! That�s preferable to fighting, and it has to lead to something good. Okay, well, imagine that Hitler never declared war on the United States, and conquered Europe by 41. Would you prefer that FDR responded by �opening up the process of real dialogue to see what the possibilities are� or sending the smart boys off to a dark room to draw up Overlord?

Warning: when someone says �opening up the process of real dialogue to see what the possibilities are� they have conceded the first round of negotiations, because the other side knows we can be had, and had cheaply. Because we want to deal. Because we want a deal for domestic consumption. Because we want a deal to legitimize the international apparatus of talks, more talks, summits, signings, banquets where the Secretary of State gavottes with the high-haired brute who sits atop his private gulag.