Coming of age at the end of the Eisenhower Era and entering politics at the start of the Goldwater Glory Days, I long have embraced the tenet that communism is bad, and rejoiced when Ronald Reagan, in Berlin, ordered Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," then lived to see the West's once implacable Cold War Soviet enemy melt into the Volga River and flow fungibly into the Caspian Sea, to evaporate.
The USSR's rulers to the end may have been evil, but they were not stupid. They accepted the theory of Mutual Assured Destruction until they realized that the U.S. under President Reagan no longer would suffer MADness and remain "even," but would insist on amassing a huge military superiority. Once the Red Army, Red Navy and Red Air Force Bear became a pale-pink Cub Scout, the blustering bully boys of Russia threw in their cards, ripped off their epaulettes, lifted a glass of vodka, and heartily bellowed "Cheers!" to a new livelihood of capitalism, organized crime, or both.
Peace was too good, however, to last. In recent days we have awakened to the crowing of a bantam rooster that has strutted into North Korea's bleak, cold barnyard to greet an atomic dawn with news that he now possesses an arsenal of nuclear bombs. Four inches shorter than the diminutive Napoleon Bonaparte, Dictator Kim Jong Il is only 5'2", even with the help of a Korean cobbler who crafts his lofty platform shoes and a wispy stylist who daily blow-dries and gels his hair into a stiff peak.
Yet, sad to say, the Little Prince of Pyongyang, although thoroughly deluded, is now powerful enough, if not tall enough, to look American President George W. Bush straight into the eye and say: "Don't you step on my blue suede elevator shoes!"
Or else? The options are many, including, but not limited to (as lawyers say): 1) radiation-frying U.S. troops massed south of the 38th Parallel DMZ, and/or 2) lobbing one of his new, nuclear-tipped Taepo Dong 2 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (that is right: ICBMs) into midtown Los Angeles, America's most populous megalopolis.
Lest this earthshaking debate degenerate into multi-pronged discussions that would bore even career diplomats and the disarmament mavens who sup at the UN pigs' trough on New York's East River, Mr. Bush should consider a simple, Texas-style deal that this petit Oriental buckaroo cannot turn down, a proposal offered through an "honest" broker: The estimable Communist Chinese No. 1 Son, Hu Jintao, president of the Republic of China, general secretary of the world's largest Communist Party, chairman of the Central Military Commission, and one hell of a lot taller than Kim Jong Il.
Here is a compelling script for W to follow on his Washington-Beijing Hotline:
"Hey, Hu. How you? Say, we got this little feller across the Yellow Sea from your place-goes by the name of Jongyard Dog, or something like that-who claims he's got a big bomb with our name on it.
"Hu, you gonna believe? Right now I'm looking at my country's soaring trade deficit figures with Red (I mean, the People's Republic of) China, and I see that you guys last year alone sold my fellow Americans goods and service-everything from Aphrodisiacs to Zoos-worth $162 billion more than what you bought from us. And that ain't all, Hu. Who knew? Our whopping 2004 trade deficit was 30% higher than our humongous 2003 ocean of Red ink with you. Yoohoo, Hu! You owe me a Big One, if you want my people to keep up this one-way shoppin' spree in Chinatown.
"Here's the deal: You call that little Korean girly-man and tell him you're immediately going to cut off his electricity, shut down his coal, and embargo any incoming shipments of rice, Viagra, hair spray and shoe soles unless he does a one-eighty. Give him 60 New York seconds to go on North Korea's version of PBS and tell his people that the pekpan is going to hit the fan unless his country embraces, at a minimum, Chinese-style capitalism and dumps his nukes pronto in the Marianas Trench. Dig it?
"You, Hu, are in deep doodoo, so figure out the details. Daddy sends his best. So does Mama. And Jebbie is saddling up his horse. As we say in Midland, 'Capiche?'"
