John Jong Kerry

Just in case you thought Lileks was blowing smoke about who our enemies want to win the election, the Financial Times says that the North Koreans love Kerry (link via Instapundit). Naturally their are those prepared to spin this one away, and FT quotes Gordon Flake:" It would be harder for a Democratic president to do a deal because there would be a lot of pressure on him not to be a soft touch," quoth he.


Okay, Flake. Because there isn't going to be any pressure on President Kerry to be an accomodationist. No one's gonna want him to back away like a skittish horse from anything that smacks of "unilateralism." Isn't the escape from Cowboy Diplomacy precisely the thing that's animated Kerry's almost life-like candiacy?


Now, you and I both know that Clinton was able to bomb Belgrade into rubble without international furor of any kind, because he was the kind of American that European politicians understood (read: he was willing to say bad things about America). So it's possible that Kerry could simply put another face on "axis-of-evil" diplomacy. But I don't see tough-on-rogue-nations anywhere in Kerry's history, and I don't see much of a mandate for it from his party or the international community. If we remember that only Nixon could go to China, we should also consider that he wouldn't have done so if Johnson had tried it first.