That excellent Kim Jong Un
by digby
The Baby President in full-effect:
President Trump’s tarmac greeting of the three American prisoners that North Korea released was a definite achievement for the White House ahead of the upcoming summit over North Korea’s nuclear program. As NBC’s Peter Alexander said on “Today,” it was a made-for-TV moment – even after 3:00 am ET.
“I think you probably broke the all-time, in history, television rating for three o'clock in the morning – that I would say,” Trump declared.
But the feel-good moment from the prisoners’ release also contained these words from the president: “We want to thank Kim Jong-un, who really was excellent to these three incredible people. They are really three incredible people. And the fact that we were able to get them out so soon was really a tribute to a lot of things, including a certain process that's taking place right now. And that process is very important.”
Kim Jong-un was excellent to those three Americans?
In the span of a few moments after 3:00 am ET, we saw the very best of Trump (a televised prisoner release), as well as the very worst (praise for a dictator who delivered something the president wanted).
He also said that Kim was "nice" because he let the prisoners go early, which means nothing since these meetings always feature such gestures and it has absolutely nothing to do with being "nice."
He sounds like an ignorant child. But then, he's a man who called Kim a short, fat "little rocket man" and is now saying he's excellent because he thinks that will result in Kim giving up his nuclear weapons. His playground view of world politics is obvious.
What is clear is that Trump believes that by meeting Kim in person he is enhancing his own prestige, rather than the other way around. He just loves the attention and thinks he'll win the Nobel Prize and make Obama cry.
The truth is that Kim is the one who has had his prestige massively enhanced because he's got the president travelling around the world to meet with him and calling him excellent. Too bad about all that dictatory stuff but then Trump doesn't care about that anyway. In fact, he admires it.
I still don't know why they (and by they I mean Bolton and all the Republicans) thought it was a good idea to stage a big show of withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal just as he's trying to forge this nuclear deal with North Korea unless they want this deal to fail. Bolton, of course, has made it clear that he thinks that regime change in Iran and North Korea is the only answer so perhaps it's just that simple.
Maybe we'll get lucky and something good will come of this chaos. The three prisoners being released certainly is. But if it does, it will be because others are playing a smarter game than Trump. As long as they flatter and fete him he's putty in their hands. Let's hope that Kim Jong Un really wants to give up his nuclear weapons.
Yeah, I know.
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