Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Takes a big man I guess to do what President & SECSTATE Clinton did to get the US citizens released but can’t help but be reminded of the quote that deplomacy is something you try until you can get the enemy zero’d in on your sights or until the guard dog breaks the chair or something along those lines. [Keep hope alive]. & W could be a deplomat with the best of them Sir but they knew he would launch on em in a heartbeat….sometimes that’s not all bad.
Hee, hee. I think it goes:
Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice doggy’ until you can find a large enough rock.
Maybe I missed it but I find it interesting that, far as I can tell, The former Vice President, for whom the journalists were at least indirectly employed by, has been strangely silent on the whole affair. Guess he had more important things to do jetting around in the GIV to tell the rest of us to reduce our carbon footprint and all.
For me, if I ever had the choice of multi-millionaires to work for, I’d rather be employed by the likes of Ross Perot than the esteemed former VP.
At least when Perot’s employee’s found themselves unwelcome in a strange land he did something about it.
Yep, Should have made Gore go and grovel for his border jumping journos.
The trip was sactioned by the Obama Administration. If Bill hadn’t been able to close the deal the White House wouldn’t be completely on the hook for the failure, since Bill has no official diplomatic-esque position. The administration looks good and it feeds Bill’s need for the spotlight.
The latest chapter in this drama has left me believing 2 things:
1. This was a done deal before Clinton got on the plane to NK. Nobody sends an ex-president into a risky negotiation situation in a rogue country. The event was agreed upon and scripted in advance. Not a coincidence that Bill’s wife runs the State Department.
2. Money was involved – LOTS of money. The Norks saw this as a golden opportunity for cash from the beginning. The only questions now are whose money (private or public funds) and how much was involved. We will probably never know, just like the story of NK women refugees escaping into China and being sold into sex slavery will never be told by the two reporters, as part of the terms of release. My bet is this was bought and paid for by the U.S. Taxpayers, as another “crisis opportunity” to be exploited for poiltical gain by both the Obama regime and the Pyongyang regime.
Mike 47:
1. I am not so sure that the O administration would not let Clinton go with the possibility of being hung out to dry, either from malice or naivete. If it embarrassed Hilary, so much the better for O.
2. I am truly hoping that it was only money.
I would have let them stay there a couple years as notice to other idiot reporters. Just because you are an American Citizen, that doesn’t mean you can ignore other country’s laws and borders. These two “reporters” (actually, useful idiots for the left and AlGore’s TV channel) deserved what they got, IMHO.
YMMV, of course, but that’s how I see it.
Tim,
Your comment brings up an interesting thought – what would the US gummint have done if the two journalists had worked for, maybe.. let’s say…. an evangelical Christian magazine anxious to report on human rights abuses?
George V.
George V.’
Your point is well, well, taken. To even ask the question is to answer it.
AWiTim/
I’m with you all the way–were the first sentiments I expressed to my wife. Odious regime tho NK may be, don’t expect to traipse around willy nilly, then call “KingsX” when things go South and expect to get bailed out on the taxpayer’s dime..
One side note, the photo-op with Clinton and Kim will be one of the few times we’ve seen the little dictator in recent months. With rumors of illness surrounding him and the complete state control over media, we now have him standing a known distance from a known entity — we’ll have his height, weight, and girth down to the millimeter.
– Max
Max … another aspect of the official photograph to me is Smilin’ Willie’s lack of his routine falsely cordial smile, and also his curiously severe, pulled-in stance, sitting next to L’il KIm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an official picture of Clinton when he wasn’t smiling at least a little. Body language doesn’t lie, as the aphorism goes. In this case, his body is saying ‘I’m not even here. I’ve been photoshopped in by the North Korean propagandists.’
What a lesson from a slick politician. Makes one almost miss him. Naah …
Marianne
I’m thinking Slick Willie was begging for a chance to fly across an ocean in a private jet with two cuties….of a Democrat flavored persuasion…but…I B Cynical….Were there any AK State Troopers along to run interference?
Marianne:
Based on what we have now I positively do miss Clinton…
My standards get lowered more every day.
“…another aspect of the official photograph to me is Smilin’ Willie’s lack of his routine falsely cordial smile, and also his curiously severe, pulled-in stance, sitting next to L’il KIm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an official picture of Clinton when he wasn’t smiling at least a little. ”
Well whattya expect? Bill had just learned that he’d flown trans-Pacific till his butt was flat only to find out the “Kim” he was to meet was in fact a man.
/rimshot
Hey, he had two very grateful liberal American female reporters with him on the flight back. No worries, mate.
/sad trombone http://www.sadtrombone.com/
So if you are a journalist, you can admit to crossing into a rogue nation that our country has no diplomatic relations with in order to secure a story, be captured, and a former president will come to your rescue.
Of course, it helps when your boss was the president’s #2. Wonder which president will go pull those hikers out of Iran? Or the soldier captured in Afghanistan?
They were probably worried AlBore would require too much food…and in NK, that’s a big issue…so Cheezburger in Paradise Willie went. They got take out from Seoul shipped in.
I think HFS kinda nailed it.
Didn’t these two folks illegaly cross a border in violation of international law?
Were they not aware that they were taking this risk?
Did they not do the mental calculus that made them decide that the potential benefits outweighed the possible risk?
Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad to see them sprung from the Nork kangaroo court system but they did commit a criminal act in a very public way. I doubt the risks that they took were all for purely alturistic reasons.