Why the muted response from the White House?
Updated below
So far, I'm a bit surprised at how low key the White House is being about the North Korean nuclear test. As far as I can tell, about the only thing they've said is that the Security Council should take this up because it's bad.
Compare that to the President's reactions when Saddam Hussein filed his allegedly incomplete report to the UN weapons inspectors. He was on the TV shouting and screaming about it almost immediately, calling for immediate attacks and the like.
So, why the muted response? Is it because Bush wants to minimize the importance of this because he thinks it reflects poorly on his performance as President? I think not. As far as I can tell, this guy never thinks anything reflects poorly on his performance. Is this the calm before the "shock and awe" storm? Perhaps, but I don't think we have the capability at the moment to do a "shock and awe" demonstration in North Korea, not to mention how badly it would probably backfire. And, thus far, unlike with Iran, we haven't had enough pre-attack hype to get all the media pundits fired up. So, at the moment, I'm lacking an explanation. Perhaps Rove is out of town for the Columbus Day weekend.
Update:
Via Josh Marshall (I can't get the permalink to this post to work), Arms Control Wonk [and, I can't get Marshall's link to Arms Control Wonk to work either] says the test may have been a dud. Maybe that's the reason.
So far, I'm a bit surprised at how low key the White House is being about the North Korean nuclear test. As far as I can tell, about the only thing they've said is that the Security Council should take this up because it's bad.
Compare that to the President's reactions when Saddam Hussein filed his allegedly incomplete report to the UN weapons inspectors. He was on the TV shouting and screaming about it almost immediately, calling for immediate attacks and the like.
So, why the muted response? Is it because Bush wants to minimize the importance of this because he thinks it reflects poorly on his performance as President? I think not. As far as I can tell, this guy never thinks anything reflects poorly on his performance. Is this the calm before the "shock and awe" storm? Perhaps, but I don't think we have the capability at the moment to do a "shock and awe" demonstration in North Korea, not to mention how badly it would probably backfire. And, thus far, unlike with Iran, we haven't had enough pre-attack hype to get all the media pundits fired up. So, at the moment, I'm lacking an explanation. Perhaps Rove is out of town for the Columbus Day weekend.
Update:
Via Josh Marshall (I can't get the permalink to this post to work), Arms Control Wonk [and, I can't get Marshall's link to Arms Control Wonk to work either] says the test may have been a dud. Maybe that's the reason.
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