Obama, Rodman Apply Charm Offensive

During the visit Rodman meets with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. This is a step down in prestige for North Korea. Previously Korean strongmen have met with former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Google’s Eric Schmidt, both of whom, as far as I know, have nary a tattoo between them.

 

But I suppose when your nation is the economic equivalent of a homeless person — make that a homeless person pushing a grocery cart containing a nuclear weapon — you don’t get many high-level visitors.

Rodman returns to the U.S. from his “Globetrotting” diplomacy breathing a sigh of relief and surfing a wave of publicity. During subsequent interviews he sounds a lot like Secretary of State John Kerry discussing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad when he says Kim is a “great guy” who wants peace. So far so good, just another La La Land loony under the delusion we care what he thinks.

But then, Kim announces that North Korea is “nullifying” the 60-year-old armistice with South Korea that ended the Korean War in 1953. This essentially means the war can begin anew at any time.

Meanwhile, here at home the Obama administration announces a "Charm Offensive" designed to lull, engage, flatter, disarm, fool (choose your verb) House Republicans so Obama can reach what has been described as a “grand bargain” deal on the deficit by sometime this summer.

Initially the effort proceeds as planned. Obama buys dinner for a group of Republican officeholders. He makes personal phone calls. And for the first time since the last decade, Obama journeys to Capitol Hill to meet with the House Republican Caucus on its turf.

But this ceasefire doesn’t last 60 days, much less 60 years.

As soon as the GOP-led House released Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, Obama began blasting away at Republicans. He accused them of wanting to balance the budget on the backs of Medicaid and Medicare recipients so the party can give a handout to the wealthy. So much for peaceful negotiations.

Voters who aren’t on the White House payroll may well wonder how a president that has not released a budget of his own this year and has never had a budget that balanced on anyone’s back, poor or wealthy, can publically criticize someone else’s efforts? But not having a functioning economy has not stopped North Korea’s nuclear weapons development, so why should a lack of intellectual consistency hamper President Obama?

Which is why I really want to check the White House visitor’s log. It could be Rodman has something contagious.