Sunday, April 05, 2009

This is a test

By Capt. Fogg

Well, it happened, just like the campaign ads threatened it would -- that three AM phone call. OK, so it was 4:30, but close enough. The phone call from the Press Secretary woke Mr. Obama to say that North Korea had launched a multi-stage rocket which shortly afterward crossed over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean.

It's not quite the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it woke the president, who presumably was not reading about goats and didn't sit frozen in fear for 7 minutes. Instead, he talked to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright, National Security Advisor General Jim Jones, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and various other intelligence officials. You know, president stuff.

As the launch was advertised as a communications satellite experiment it must be seen as a failure, since it did not enter orbit at all, much less the 22,500 mile orbit it would need to be geosynchronous. As we recall, their nuclear test was a bit of a dud as well, although it did go bang, but the DPRK (I won't insult the Beloved Leader by calling it D-PRICK) like certain American presidents of recent memory does not admit to failure. They've declared it a success and I'm sure that in the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea nobody will act like the Dixie Chicks and show shame.

Does the DPRK now pose a credible nuclear threat? It doesn't look like it, but they're trying. It doesn't look like we're going to give the John Wayne response we might have expected by that same president of recent memory, but much will be made ofObama's reaction and his ability to communicate our disapproval in a way that the Little PRK in charge of North Korea won't be able to refuse. I'm sure jaws will be flapping and huge Palm Beach billionaire behinds will be bouncing up and down in radio studios over this, making conclusions and drawing inferences and expostulating on myriad ramifications, but this is a test -- a real one, and unlike Mr. Limbaugh, real Americans hope he succeeds.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Labels: ,

Bookmark and Share

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home