Bill Clinton, Diplomatic Commando

Bill Clinton, the most renowned -- and active -- of the U.S. former Presidents and still known to some admiringly as "Big Dog," did it again. He made the news in his usual effortless way.

He responded to a request by the North Koreans that he come and "rescue" from them two lady American journalists who had been arrested and found guilty on a badly trumped-up charge of spying and sentenced to long prison terms, after they were abducted by the authorities while wandering around in the cold desolation of the Chinese-North Korean border. And so it was done, and more on the basis of the respect and prestige that Clinton had garnered through the years than on anything else.

His visit lasted hardly a day, and now he and the two journalists are back at home, safe and sound, and America's Dark Side, aka the conservative, largely Republican right wing, is quietly furious. For one thing, this incident highlights how unlikely their own retirees from the Oval Office are to be enlisted by forces overseas in any kind of shot at peace making, especially a quick, spectacular in-and-out commando-style diplomatic move like this.

When the news broke, my first thoughts were on what ways would that Dark Side find to roundly condemn Clinton's unimpeachable motives and success. It was impossible to imagine any attack that would make sense, but I knew they wouldn't let reason stand in their way, even if they they had to be niggling in the extreme about it, and they didn't disappoint.

So far, however, I have only read two of their quibbles. Surely there must be more, but I'm always slow to hunt for anything on purpose in Fox NN territory. One is that this works to North Korea's advantage and takes off some of the heat they've been experiencing for trying to go on with nuclearizing their weaponry after all. And the second is that Clinton is undercutting the U.S. State Department and his wife, who happens to be the head of that department and who has been trying to be hard-nosed with the North Koreans but with results that are almost the reverse of what she might have wanted. And associated with this are suspicions of how her husband managed to hop a flight into North Korea in the first place, and with nobody knowing.

And meanwhile we have the news services floundering and trying to decide what contrary stance they should take in this obviously humanitarian case, since their leanings are generally not far from those of that Dark Side, and so you get the outstandingly obtuse Reuters headline that says, "Clinton Visit Unlikely to Change North Korea."

No one in his right mind would ever have thought that it would.