Way to Go Bill: Imprisoned Korean Journalists Are Coming Home!!!!

Wasn’t it just a month ago that we were all talking in Hawaii and death and injury from a missile attack from North Korea on Honolulu? Well there was a serious mood swing on that paranoia today. And my country took a step forward in showing what it takes to find peace in the world. I am so glad that Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld and their ilk are gone. Good riddance! Now if Fox News (sp) would just do the same?!

The debate among the two political parties about whether to "talk" to other countries _ particularly ones we disagree with _ was full of rhetoric and supposition last year, but Bill Clinton just showed the world how it can work to accomplish marvelous and difficult things, like freedom for two American journalists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQIEJbIXMno

Politico just broke the story. Kim Jong Il agreed to pardon the two journalists. Why? Only he knows for sure, but my bet is that a face to face meeting and a show of respect had something to do with it.

Those in our country who see this as a sign of American weakness or surrender have done a lot over the the last 8 years to make my country disliked around the world and even hated in some quarters. The Chaney, Rumsfeld, Bush form of political arrogance is not the way i see my country. Thanks Bill Clinton for doing what most of us want our leaders to do: diplomacy and courtesy and respect and open dialog. We have the military if we need it. We American taxpayers spend more on the U.S. Military than all of the rest of the countries in the world combined. So we have the stick if we need it.

I hope that President Obama draws inspiration and courage from this event. We need to go out into the bigger world and show some respect to other leaders _ even ones that we disagree with. Here is the Politico news flash:

THE WHITEBOARD

RELEASED: North Korean media say Kim Jong Il has pardoned two American journalists and ordered their release during former President Bill Clinton’s visit, AP reports.

The Politico story by Andy Barr reads like a preview of a great novel:

North Korea has ordered the release of the two American journalists detained since May following former President Bill Clinton’s meeting Tuesday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

According to North Korea’s state news agency, the two journalists – Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36 – were pardoned after being visited by the former president.

“Kim Jong Il issued an order of the Chairman of the DPRK National Defense Commission on granting a special pardon to the two American journalists who had been sentenced to hard labor in accordance with Article 103 of the Socialist Constitution and releasing them,” read the report from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency.

Clinton met with Kim shortly after landing in Pyongyang Tuesday.

The former president, in a surprise visit, supplied Kim with a verbal message from President Barack Obama. The report said Clinton’s message was “courteously” conveyed. Thus far, neither the White House or the State Department has given any details about what message Obama sent to Kim or whether it touched on tensions created by North Korea’s budding nuclear weapons program.

Kim and the former president then sat down for what the state media described as a “wide-ranging exchange of views.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25775.html#ixzz0NFMRxbUj

So what if this isn’t about the tort system? I feel like celebrating, both for the released journalists and their loved ones but also for my country that is finally standing up and being progressive and respectful and a member of the world community. I can just hear the radical extreme right snarling and spitting and screaming that the sky is falling as they always do. Sad group of political operatives. Anyone else out there feel like me?