GOOD FUCKING PLAN!!!

Oh, Chimpy, well-played as ever sir.

North Korea claimed it conducted a successful underground nuclear test Monday, according to the country's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)...

...The U.S. Geological Survey Web site recorded a light 4.2-magnitude earthquake in North Korea at 10:35 a.m., about 385 kilometers (240 miles) northeast of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

Bush's policy toward North Korea demonstrates and highlights the failure of his "never talk to anybody you don't like" diplomacy, from September 2004:

It is now clear, Korea experts agree, that in the late 1990s North Korea continued to pursue a clandestine nuclear weapons program. For this reason, the Bush administration demanded verifiable dismantlement of North Korea's weapons program before it would again consider rekindling any similar agreement.

The Clinton administration saw the agreement as the best possible solution of two bad alternatives: either go to war with North Korea or ignore its burgeoning nuclear program. It chose the middle ground by essentially freezing North Korea's known nuclear ambitions.

Mr. Bush preferred a "bold approach, all at once," said Pritchard, who is no longer with the State Department. Pritchard added that President Bush didn't want to get "bogged down in long negotiations."

Mr. Bush's "bold approach" was that diplomacy with North Korea needed to be all or nothing. President Bush chose nothing. The situation worsened.

Following the January speech, in April 2002, "North Koreans finally sought" to rekindle Clinton-era negotiations on its nuclear program, Pritchard said.

"At that point in time we believed we had the nuclear program under control," he added. But the policy shifted. President Bush refused senior level talks.

Official relations between the two countries ceased. In response to being diplomatically cold-shouldered, North Korea's ultimate response was that it became openly nuclear.

Note that official confirmation that it was a "nuclear" blast, as opposed to a big-ass conventional explosion has not yet been received, but assuming it is a nuclear test...

Naturally, the GOP will ignore the brazen failure of its own policy and engage in their usual two-pronged approach. First, blame the Clenis. Second, use this event to buttress their arguments for not talking, but bombing Iran.

There has not been one successful enterprise undertaken against the so-called 'axis of evil'. Iraq is an unmitigated disaster, North Korea has gone nuclear, and Iran will either go nuclear or be the recipient of a military action by the United States that makes the Iraq disaster the opening act is the worst decisions in history of the nation. Well, at least since Franklin Pierce said "gin" over "free Kansas."