Let’s face it: KIm Jong Il is the Hoodoo King of the far east! How else to explain the utterly improbable events we have seen unfold whenever Kim is involved? Such mojo deserves an epic poem, alright maybe just a rock song.
Gov. Richardson is hardly the first to cast free will to the winds and dance to Kim’s tune. Bill Clinton, a bit of a hoodoo man himself, at least in his own mind, and Madeline Albright were long under Kim’s spell, much to his glee and profit. We all thought that George Bush was a considerably more flinty guy, and, indeed, for the first five years or so of W’s presidency, it looked like the Hoodoo King had met his match. To the considerable dismay of many, in virtually all matters of foreign policy, the last year has seen the Bush administration’s resolve disintegrate like a wedge of cake in a rain storm. Whether this has been the result of Secretary Rice’s misguided advice, or other now unknown factors, the country has proceeded like a rudderless boat, sails flapping, and destination unknown to the seemingly clueless administration crew.
This sad state of affairs has been glaringly obvious in the recent negotiations with Kim who is back and in fine form. Kim’s Hoodoo amnesia ray is tuned up and in action: the entire State Department seems oblivious of Kim’s history. Sec. Rice, and negotiator Chris Hill, who is no doubt a man of good will, seem to think that Kim has recently had a wildly successful moral compass transplant.
We’ve all followed the soap opera of the U$25 extremely large that Kim wants up front. As recently as a couple of days ago, China Interfax was reporting that, even after 13 days of friendly persuasion by Treasury’s head terrorism honcho, Daniel Glaser, Bank of China would still not play ball and act as a conduit to get the hot bucks to Kim for fear of harming its own reputation and rating. I’ve had a recurring vision (complete with soundtrack, soon to be available on iTunes) of Chris Hill on the back roads of China, dragging suitcases of real Benjamins to the North Korean border in a desperate attempt to get Kim back into negotiations (cue the Chambers Brothers’ great hit, “Money, Money, Money”). All through this long slog, Ambassador Hill has hope in his heart (cue Eric Clapton’s “Running on Faith”). When he gets to the boarder, there is Kim swilling Courvoisier in the back of his limo. The moment of truth. What will Kim do? “You brought the money?…….Good…..Put it in the trunk!” The limo trunk lid and Kim’s door slam shut at the same time. The limo peels out leaving Ambassador Hill standing in the road in a cloud of dust (cue Aretha’s iconic “Respect”). The boarder guards laugh. No one offers a ride back to Beijing. A wiser, though much sadder, Ambassador slowly retraces his steps (cue Aretha’s “Trouble in Mind”). Fade to black. This spectacle may yet come to pass — for the Hoodoo King wants his cash. Sense, wisdom, free will, nothing seems to withstand Kim’s desire for more. The man’s a black hole of consciousness, and we seem helplessly caught and desperate to chuck in anything he wants. Why does Western civilization so carelessly cast itself toward the event horizon of tyranny?