Via Ben, Great news for Obama in the form of this Gallup poll:

Large majorities of Democrats and independents, and even half of Republicans, believe the president of the United States should meet with the leaders of countries that are considered enemies of the United States. Overall, 67% of Americans say this kind of diplomacy is a good idea....

Check out this audio book talk about U.S. vs. Them, featuring Peter Scoblic, the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, and a cameo by John B. Judis.

“Moral Clarity,” Ideological Rigidity, Strategic Myopia
by Paul Boyer (Link.)

Before I retired as a university professor, I would mentally calculate as each term began what public events that year’s freshmen were likely to remember. For today’s freshmen, born around 1990, the earliest such memory might well be Bill Clinton’s impeachment. As for national security issues, even the rare freshman attentive to such matters would be aware of little before the current Bush administration.

North Korea just blew up the cooling tower on its own Yongbyon reactor, as part of an ongoing dismantlement deal with the United States. This is a momentous step because it's largely irreversible: North Korea will never again be able to kick out inspectors and start reprocessing plutonium in a matter of days, as it did in 2003.

Of course, we don't know if Kim's decision was affected by the fact he now has a nuclear arsenal. North Korea may very well renounce its nuclear program, but keep the 8-15 bombs it produced during George Bush's "I'm not talking to you" phase (cir. 2001-2006).

By pursuing that ridiculous policy, George W. Bush may have perversely increased America's long-run incentive to prop up the North Korean regime--since now, a coup or political meltdown would run the risk of putting those nukes in the hands of terrorists.

--Barron YoungSmith