Sunday, November 16, 2003
The Marmot fisks Joshua Micah Marshall's attempt to criticize the Bush Administration's efforts vis a vis North Korea (calling them, among other things, "unilateral," of all things). Sadly, partisan hackery is no substitute for a firm grasp of the issues, and that the Marmot has. Read his measured and balanced take and imagine the red pencil all over Marshall's Talking Points.
I'm sure you've read Joshua Marshall's comments on Korea over at Talking Points Memo, and if you haven't you can read the latest of them here. To make a long story short, Marshall calls Bush's policies toward North Korea "unilateralist" and "aggressive." Allow me to reprint below the meat of his argument, along with some of the reservations I have with it...
I hope it read well - I posted that on serious sleep deficiency.
Oh, yeah, it reads fine. You're almost too nice.
Marshall's piece reads like a classic bit of dishonest debating. It's like he's saying, "Oh, you think I can't spin this into Bush unilateralism? Just watch..." Does he really believe it? Who knows. But it's the kind of thing one grows tired of out of partisan commentators - never giving credit where credit is due, or even admitting that the other side did the best possible with the cards dealt.