Playing let's make a deal with North Korea (UPDATED)

Hot Air has a great assessment up about the tentative 'deal' with North Korea over their nuclear weapons program.

Naturally, the MSM blames the whole thing on Pres. Bush and America. Best line of the post?

This is the press we have today: Aggressively clueless about the past, and mindlessly biased about the present. Useless as chroniclers of history as it unfolds.

John Bolton doesn't like the deal and it seems that the Japanese don't, either. I guess their 'political prisoners' won't be coming home any time soon. But SecState Rice thinks that this is a good lesson for the Iranians. It's a lesson allright, but not the one we should be sending, I think.

Basically, the deal says we'll worry about it later. The North Koreans got a lot and gave up nothing. They will only cheat as soon as our focus turns elsewhere, especially under the dictatorship of Kim Jong Il. Then we're all back to square one and they have some $300m in aid to enjoy.

And what about those four to six nukes they reportedly have already?

Damned details.

***UPDATED***: Bolton was on Fox News and wasn't pulling punches. Via Hot Air:

The longstanding debate about North Korea in U.S. diplomatic circles has been whether to attempt reforming the regime through negotiations and incentives or forcing its eventual collapse through sanctions and isolation. After Kim’s nuclear test, the Bush administration moved forcefully in the latter direction. Much to everyone’s surprise, it managed to bring the U.N. Security Council along with it. Kim’s promise now to behave himself may well have been an act of desperation as the sanctions began to bite. This was no time to loosen their jaws. On the bright side, we’ve won a promise from a liar.

Seems we'll take a 'win' wherever we can get one right now.