Ethics

Turn Off Your Irony Meters

By Ed Brayton

They don't make them strong enough to withstand this column at the Worldnutdaily. In it, Ollie North -- apparently with a straight face -- actually criticizes Bill Clinton's "private diplomacy" in going to North Korea to free two journalists imprisoned there. The column is actually entitled "Ransom for an enemy." And he's mad as hell at his presumption -- and that's all it is -- that we might have given North Korea something to free those journalists:

Though the Clinton aircraft was refueled at U.S. Air Force bases in Alaska and Japan, the O-Team insists that the former president and party were on a strictly "private humanitarian mission" and that "there was no quid pro quo" for the release.

We all know better. The smile pasted on Kim Jong-il's face in the "official photographs" taken with Mr. Clinton tell the story. A price was paid. The North Koreans know what it is. The Obama administration knows what it is. But the American people don't - and we won't unless transcripts of the Clinton-Kim "conversations" are released. Don't count on that happening soon. The administration that promised to be "the most transparent in history" has made secrecy in foreign affairs a way of life.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on August 10, 2009 (boomark / email).