| Page 2 of 2 < |
Six-Party Talks -- and Half a Dozen Doughnuts
Snow called it a "question of how you get through and how you influence that behavior."
"At the very least," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack proposed, "insist upon the fact that they do not engage in such further provocative behavior."
  President Bush greets workers, including manager Reynaldo Ramos, left, at a Dunkin' Donuts in Alexandria. (By Charles Dharapak -- Associated Press) Washington SketchA national political reporter for the Post, Milbank writes Washington Sketch, an observational column about political theater in the White House, Congress and elsewhere in the capital. He covered the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns and President Bush's first term. Before coming to the Post as a Style political writer in 2000, he covered the Clinton White House for the New Republic and Congress for the Wall Street Journal. |
Sign Up for RSS FeedBush, meeting in the Oval Office with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, spoke of sorrow at Dear Leader's acting out. "It's their choice to make," he said. "What these firing of the rockets have done is they've isolated themselves further. And that's sad for the people of North Korea."
Saakashvili tried to lift his host from sadness. "I'm sure that North Korean missiles will never reach the United States," he said.
This did cheer Bush a bit. "One thing we have learned is that the rocket didn't stay up very long and tumbled into the sea," he said later with a smile.
The studied calm began even as the missiles were firing Sunday evening and national security adviser Steve Hadley got on the phone with reporters to say that this "is not a threat to the territory of the United States."
By yesterday afternoon's briefing, Snow had all but removed the military option. Asked about administration claims that "all options are on the table," the spokesman rushed to say that "we leave all options available in all circumstances, because that is the way you do this." But, he added, "the United States is interested in a diplomatic resolution here."
Clearly. Snow managed to say the phrase "six-party talks" five times.
"You anticipated this launch for a month," ABC News's Martha Raddatz pointed out, "and yet you still don't have a clear idea of what options there are. Why not?"
Snow tried to explain that "the parties through the six-party talks are now working to come up with something in unison."
"What's the response?" Raddatz persisted.
"The U.S. response is we're working with our allies to figure out how to try to get North Korea back to the table, back to the six-party talks," Snow maintained.
Unilateral or multilateral, the administration is reliably single-minded.
