Refutation
Back in February, Steve Soto of The Left Coaster wrote that

Sure, it would have been better for the incoming Bush Administration to continue what was underway between Seoul, Washington, and Pyongyang when they came into office. And, yes, as a result we have lost four critical years where we could have had inspectors on the ground and controls in place to stop the North from becoming a nuclear player capable now of spreading weapons to terrorists. The responsibility for those developments rests squarely on the heads of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, not Bill Clinton.

This is just incredible nonsense. No, we could not have had any such inspectors or controls ---not if you regard North Korea as a sovereign country and not if you accept the hard fact that Kim had already developed weaponized nuclear capabilities right under the noses of the worthless IAEA inspectors.

But the great do-nothing President of the Deluded Left must be defended at all costs, see.

In December 2002, North Korea kicked the IAEA inspectors out, declaring that they had "restarted" their efforts to extract plutonium.

In January 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In February 2005, Kim announced that he did, in fact, have nuclear weapons.

Are we to believe, as Soto does, that Kim did not already have nuclear weapons prior to these withdrawals and admissions? How can Bill Clinton not be held responsible for the unchecked nuclear developments in North Korea? It was happening on his watch. But because Kim gets noisy on Bush's watch, he somehow gets all the "credit."

In 1994, Clinton sent former President Jimmy Carter to negotiate the so-called Agreed Framework deal with Kim ---basically a large bribe package to keep that nutty kimchi pot from working on more nuclear technology. But it was all a lie: Kim continued to export technology and work on his own missile delivery systems and uranium enrichment activities throughout the 1990s.

And none of it has ever really been suspended. If Kim closes one facility down, he opens another. It's a whole lot of three-card monty which allows Kim to pull the same shit that Saddam used to: blame Uncle Sam, demand more bribes, insist on the peaceful applications of nuclear technology, withdraw from this treaty, criticize that one. It's a joke. As is this other observation from Soto:

What also rests on the head of Bush and Cheney is the fact that while we have 150,000 troops tied down occupying the one member of the Axis of Evil that posed no such threat to us, this administration has allowed the other two members of that Axis to become real threats.

This is a typical criticism of the anti-Bush Left. Typical in that there's no thought invested in it other than what partisan posturing requires. What Soto and his like-minded friends are really saying is that we wouldn't be in danger from Kim if only we had more soldiers and Marines on the DMZ. Really? We don't have enough nuclear cannon fodder in South Korea as it is? What can our infantry do against a Rodong missile carrying a nuclear warhead? Nothing.

I will say it again: there is no politically acceptable military solution to the problem of a nuclearized North Korea. Kim and his cronies must either be brought down in a coup or the country will eventually become such a basket case that a revolution will destroy it. But there is no conventional response we can mount in the face of nuclear weapons.

Of course, if Kim ever succumbs to syphilis, he may very well go out in one last blaze of glory. But will Bush be to blame if we are compelled to vaporize Pyongyang?

You know the answer.