The Chinese are probably reacting to a John Bolton "diplomatic" special. The Bush team never, never stop.

When people really want to solve problems, they recognize that "saving face" is a key method to getting people to the table. The Bush administration is so full of themselves that they believe they are the only ones that count. They are like 3 year olds who haven't figured out how to negotiate (and respect) the other guy. (I was going to say 5 year old, but then I realized this would be completely unfair to 5 year olds - most of them have already figured this much out.)

I know this comment is off topic. The MSM distorted agenda is driving the Left Coaster agenda away from the real issues. While the MSM tranquilize the public with Bolten, Judicial Nomination fights, and many other distractions, the world economy is slowing, real earnings are dropping at historical rates, the is no plan to deal with the oil supply crisis, the U.S. is competing in the global economy with no plan to succeed, documents are revealed confirming intelligence fixing (is this a crime?), there is no plan to address budget deficits, etc. Why let the corporate MSM propaganda drive the agenda for this site?

Mary,

You are absolutely right!!!

Worst. Administration. Ever.

According to those Straussian PNAC-ers running our country, one can't achieve Global World Dominance by being seen as a wimp and by being "diplomatic" and (gasp) compromising...oh the horror. Stickin it too the World...that's their motto. Unfortunately one would think a person of average intellect would realize Junior's Messopotamia aka Iraqmire (invading a smallish non-threatening country) that that theory is entirely bunk!
So much for the era of Peace and Prosperity.

Steve,

Are you planning a post on CAFTA by any chance? I just heard it on the radio yesterday for the first time in a while. It sure sounds like they are making a push to get this thing done. Any thoughts?

Th Chns rhtrc s nthng mr thn th clssc cmmnst mds prnd tntng "Nw, s wht y md s d?" Thgh thr ntnt ws nvr n dbt. Nw tht's svng fc.

Hey, We call'em like we see'em.

If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck and walks like a duck then it must be a duck.

Mr. Yang said that when President Bush referred to the North Korea leader, Kim Jong Il, as a "tyrant" in late April, Mr. Bush

Is there something he said that wasn't true?

Of course Bush could of done what his mommy told him...."If you don't have any thing nice to say about someone, don't say it at all."

Something tells me Right Coaster would have been perfectly comfortable back in the days when we used to just club each other with big sticks and pound our chests.

Unless of course he doesn't have a big stick.

The bill for our over reach is finally coming due. While we have spent 5 years drunk on our own cool-aid, the chinese have been working to consolidation power and their own natianal entrance onto the world stage. Our actions in Iraq have only reinforced their determination and urgency, while making them much more palatable than they otherwise would have been. Through our inter-national business dealing we have essentially paid them to modernize their infrastructure at great cost to our own.

Much more can be said about our the obvious fallacies of amateurish Bush china policy post 2000 and has been -Check out http://culturelifenewsii.blogspot.com/
though many of the most recent articles are not on china, there are many good ones in the archive.
Elaine provides a good framework from which the casual reader can start to ponder the consequences of the china blunderings she documents.

In the future, it may be a good day to refer back to as the first in a long succession of statements and acts leading to the Chinese becoming the dominant political power in the world. The idiot administration leaves us in a tenuous situation, as it slowly winds down to the dangerous irrelevance it's becoming. On the one hand, we are left with few real allies, and even the good allies wouldn't mind watching us take it in the chops. On the other hand, we have no real diplomatic mission. For shit's sake, we couldn't even keep the CIA in Venezuela.

Truly, this is the worst administration ever. It has sold off the public trust more than the Grant administration, and done a worse job than James Buchanan at managing the supposed terror threat. The supporters of these failed nut jobs get to explain to their grandkids how grampy and grammy could support these types of folks.

As far as CAFTA, it's obvious the populations of these countries don't think it's a good trade agreement, but since these states appear to have less media control, they actually resort to clubbing and shooting people when they riot in the streets over their respective governments selling out to American domination.

my bet is in 30-50 years, maybe even 10-20 years, most people won't even acknowledge their support for Bushco and his merry band of war criminals...

Then add that incompetent moron Bolton to the mix and you hit the trifecta of incompetence.

See, when you can just go home and hide, er, stay in your room, have mommy cook dinner for you and all, then it's okay to torch the neighborhood, antagonize all around you, and so on. But in the real world there's no room to hide in.

So bush's crap accomplishes nothing, because they're still out there.

I'm thinking that bushco would love nothing better then to have NK test a nuke, better yet use one somewhere, anywhere, preferably on us or an ally. For the furtherence of the regime, of course.

Right Coaster,

No one denies that Kim is a dictator. No one denies he's also a bit off his rocker. What's highly evident, however, is that in order to get loons like him to the table and play ball (i.e. stop making nukes and threatening the rest of the world), a bit of diplomacy is in order.

It's painfully evident that this Administration has absolutely NO diplomacy skills, especially with idiots like Bolton who had to be admonished and silenced by our own State Department for being a fucking moron. Like it or not, we need diplomacy, unless of course you're advocating an empire-like state?

And it's not just our idiotic diplomacy skills that are getting us into trouble, but our credibility to our allies. In addition to Steve's post that demonstrates that we spew out assertions on N. Korea without any supporting evidence (testing nukes?), this story a couple of months ago also shows our continual lack of credibility on intelligence involving N. Korea:

U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export

There's a time and place for tough talk. There's a time and place for diplomacy. The former involves evidence to support such hard line stances. We've successfully pissed all over that and continue to do so. The latter involves a bit of people skills and knowing how to compromise. I think we've seen these lovely skills in action already, and boy are they oh so overwhelming.

other top administration officials = John Bolton

Is there something he said that wasn't true? - no, not really. But an armed society is a polite society, eh? Kim Jong Il understands it much better than Bush.