(04-30-2018 04:17 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  OO -- I see two steps here. Just like with Sadat/Begin.

Step 1: get the right people at the table to talk. This has *never* happened in the Nork situation, regardless that the two Korean leaders have previously met. Second, there has never been a unilateral concession from the Norks as we are seeing. This step 1 is the absolute biggest step. Took balls of steel for Sadat to go to Jerusalem and speak (prior to Camp David). That was the *first* crack in the Egyptian/Israeli wall of ice that had *ever* happened.

This is the biggest step I have ever seen from Norks; nothing compares to this.

Step 2: get the big 'deal' done. But to get to step 2, you *first* have to overcome step 1. Camp David would have never occurred without Sadat traveling to Jerusalem unilaterally.

The left is fixated on: Since we dont have a step 2, nothing really here. Good boy Donny, for getting step 1 done. But step 1 is a *major* change in the relationship. A drastic *and* major change. I am not downplaying the even more historic issue if the denuclearization occurs, in the slightest. But the left *is* downplaying the major event of these sides having the level of interaction here to a major degree. And it is understandable, since a bellicose loudmouth got that step 1 done.

Everything I have read from a left columnist or politician has been of the form 'Well credit for getting the people together, for whatever it is worth. The real credit is only with denuclearization. And by the way, Trump is a bellicose asshat.'

So yes, getting the step 1 is a BFD. A HFD in fact. The countries of North and South Korea are interacting and talking in a way that is quite frankly, unparalleled for the last 60 some-odd years.

I mean, do you disagree that Trump's attitude may have played a role? In the past, all other president's seemed to know not to poke North Korean for fear of a retaliation. Trump's bellicose nature flew in the face of previous administrations' approach and may have been enough to spook North Korea.

Would you prefer that the left and right adulate him for his statesmen like manner and rhetoric? I'm not sure what else Trump has done differently from previous admins, or than this, that may have encouraged North Korea to the table - do you?