Uh-oh. Nicholas Burns, the rather smug Under Secretary of State for Political Affair just said on CNN that the Bush team, "can walk and chew gum at the same time." If you have to say that, it's probably not true.
And, as evidence, Bush, the great statesman, can't get China and Russia on board with his strategy for North Korea:
President Bush pressed the leaders of China and Russia yesterday to join the United States in sending a tough message to North Korea for this week's missile launches and said the world needs to speak with "one voice" to force the communist nation to adhere to international rules.Bush's pal, Putin, doesn't want to speak with his voice. The dire foreign policy situation was actually summed up by a major conservative player in this morning's Washington Post:
But a U.S. drive for tough sanctions against North Korea encountered immediate obstacles. In his first comments about the controversy, Russian president Vladimir Putin said concern about the missile tests should not trigger an emotional response that would "drown out common sense."
"North Korea is firing missiles. Iran is going nuclear. Somalia is controlled by radical Islamists. Iraq isn't getting better, and Afghanistan is getting worse," said William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a leading conservative commentator. "I give the president a lot of credit for hanging tough on Iraq. But I am worried that it has made them too passive in confronting the other threats."Actually, Mr. Kristol, because the President invaded Iraq, he has to be passive confronting the other threats.
What a mess.
