Trump Made History!

Last week, I implemented a feature for anyone who disagress with my viewpoint in an editorial to challenge it and submit a rebuttal that would be given full featured exposure on TheNewsBlender. So far, nobody has taken me up on that challenge. However, I really hope someone will for this one because I am sincerely baffled on this and would like someone to explain what exactly Trump has achieved with North Korea.

After the last couple of years, I can’t believe I am asking this, but has the right gone totally batcrap crazy?

I don’t care how hard you try (and again, I really hope someone does try) you cannot convince me that after the debacle with Clinton’s deal with North Korea, if Obama had done exactly the same as Trump has done in the past 3 months with North Korea, the right would not be completely apoplectic on how absurd it all is. And let’s not forget how critical of Obama the right was when he ventured to Havana and met with Castro. As bad as Cuba and the Castros have been, surely we can’t claim it’s as bad as North Korea, can we?

When Trump first announced that he would hold a meeting with Kim Jung Un and all of the excitement about the Nobel Peace Prize arose, I wrote an editorial on the subject asking what the heck were people thinking. How are the talks with North Korea now any different then they have been in the past?

“I’m old enough to remember that the two sides have met previously and have made previous remarks about unification. The last time was in 2007 and the time before I believe in 2000. I’m also old enough to remember when President Clinton made his big deal with North Korea, proclaiming that it was going to prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons. President Clinton has been excoriated by the right ever since for putting any trust in the promises of North Korea.

So what, exactly, is different this time? Why is the right praising President Trump and calling (chanting) for him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize?”

After the summit, I am still wondering the same thing. Don Sutherland wrote a great piece that was posted earlier today about how the summit has accomplished nothing more than putting us right back to where we were in 1993. Yet, the right cheers this as some sort of major breakthrough and achievement by Trump.

Think about it…we had Kim Jung Un (a lying, brutal, murderous dictator) and President Trump (a lying, ignorant,  immature narcissist) meeting in private. We have no idea what was said, yet we’re supposed to trust that they handled such a sensitive situation competently and honorably?

What did we accomplish? What was the historical significance of this summit?

Was it that after so many previous Presidents had tried and failed, Trump was the only one that could get North Korea to meet and shake hands with the President? Was that due to some great negotiating prowess by Trump? Hardly. The historical part of the whole thing seems to me to be that all of the previous Presidents have refused to give North Korea the stature of that image…something North Korea has been seeking for decades. Trump simply gave it to them without any concrete actions in return.

How is that a good thing? How is putting Kim Jung Un and the North Korean flag on the same standing as the United States President and the American Flag a good thing to cheer?

Yet, the right cheered.

Well, maybe it was so historical because of the signed agreement that Trump was able to obtain that no other President has been able to:

“Both sides reaffirmed the importance of obtaining the objectives contained in the agreed statement between the U.S. and the DPRK and upholding the principles of the joint statement of the U.S. and the DPRK to achieve peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”

Oh wait, my bad…that was not this summit’s statement, but rather the agreement that Clinton made with North Korea in 1994.

Or maybe it’s because of this part of the agreement that Trump and Kim Jung Un signed that makes it so historic:

Oops! Nope…that was Clinton again in 1994.

But even as we recognized the foolishness of Clinton and his administration’s dealing with North Korea, and the ceaseless criticisms the right has heaped upon him for it, at least the agreement he made with them included a lot more concrete actions from North Korea, and Clinton never gave the brutal, murderous dictator the prestige of meeting with the President directly.

So without getting anything concrete from North Korea, Trump is being praised by the right for this most historic summit. Here are a few thing Trump said about the meeting afterwards:

“We both want to do something. We both are going to do something. And we have developed a very special bond.”

I’m not sure why anyone would admit to developing a special bond with such a horrendous, brutal, murderous dictator after just a few hours, but, there you have it.

“I think our whole relationship with North Korea and the Korean Peninsula is going to be a very much different situation than it has in the past.”

With such a special bond, I guess so, but what else might be on his mind? Well, he did mention something about the great real estate that could be developed in North Korea. I wonder if he might figure on getting a piece of that action?

But one of the strangest things he said was his description of what he learned about Kim Jung Un. As an article at CNN described it:

“We learned a lot about each other and our countries,” Trump said. “I learned he’s a very talented man.”

When pressed about those comments in light of Kim’s brutal tactics, Trump continued praising the North Korean leaders’ ability to run a country at a young age.

“He is very talented,” Trump said, citing Kim’s ability to “take over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and run it, and run it tough.”
Kim assumed power after his father Kim Jong Il, also a brutal dictator, died in 2011.

Why, yes, by Trump’s account, Kim Jung Un is a remarkable young man who loves his country and his people and only wants to Make Korea Great Again.

And he actually praised this brutal, murdering, dictator for running the country “tough”.  Yes, what a strong leader he is.

I didn’t even mention his comments about ceasing the “war games” and pulling our troops out of South Korea.

And the right cheered.

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