THE LAST SANE MAN

Last night I listened to this interview with Jack Pritchard, who worked on the North Korea issue for both Bush and Clinton, and has written a book about the experience.

His account of the Bush administration's refusal to take the NK situation seriously ("it's not a crisis unless we say it's a crisis") is especially disturbing. Clinton may not have gone after Al Qaeda hard enough, but he was ready to go to war against NK in 1993-94 - Bush wasn't, and now those loons can threaten us with nuclear weapons.

A not-so-comforting thought - in the 1999 negotiations the North Koreans explicitly threatened to nuke Palo Alto - where I'm now sitting - because it was the hometown of negotiator William Perry.

The locals, understandably, advocate preventative measures.