This week Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama criticized the Bush administration for not engaging in diplomacy with North Korea between 2002-2005. Said Obama:

“While the United States was refusing to talk with North Korea, the reclusive regime developed eight units of nuclear weapons… North Korea secured nuclear materials (plutonium) that can make eight to 10 nuclear weapons”

While I’ll be the first one to criticize the Bush administration’s current handling of North Korea policy, Obama is leaving off the key contextual half of this story that makes his specific criticism specious.

Obama is partially right, but misses the big picture that matters, particularly in regard to the point he was attempting to convey; North Korea started a highly enriched uranium (HEU) program after it secured the 1994 Agreed Framework from the Clinton administration, and was dealing with Pakistan’s proliferating AQ Khan even as former secretary of state Madeline Albright visited Pyongyang. Clinton was even considering a trip to North Korea.

Basically North Korea was pursing nuclear weapons at what was close to the height of diplomatic relations between the two countries, indicating (once again) that diplomacy and engagement is not a primary factor in Kim Jong-il’s nuclear calculus.

In other words, Obama is wrong about this.

In the spirit of being fair and balanced, Republican candidate John McCain also unfairly criticized Bush this week. On an Op-Ed in the NY Post, McCain said:

“Sen. Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. Indeed, he’s emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.”

McCain was referring to Bush’s 2003 visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln. Again, the rest of the story makes a big difference:

Abraham Lincoln and the carrier battle group and airwing helped deliver the opening salvos and air strikes in Operation Iraqi Freedom… The carrier returned home in May 2003, in the process receiving a visit from President George W. Bush before officially ending Lincoln’s deployment by docking at San Diego before returning to homeport in Everett, WA. Bush delivered a speech that day announcing the end of major combat operations in the War on Iraq. A large sign in the background for his speech read “Mission Accomplished”… As explained by Cmdr. Conrad Chun, a Navy spokesman, “The banner was a Navy idea, the ship’s idea. The idea popped up in one of the meetings aboard the ship preparing for its homecoming and thought it would be good to have a banner, ‘Mission Accomplished.’ The sailors then asked if the White House could get the sign made. … The banner signified the successful completion of the ship’s deployment,” Cmdr. Chun continued noting that the Abraham Lincoln was deployed 290 days, longer than any other nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in history. (emphasis added)

McCain knows better. This is partially the White House’s fault for not making the context clearer. And the press for initially not reporting that context, for the most part.

These comments put me in the (these days) unfamiliar position of defending the Bush administration. A very different story if we were discussing current North Korea policy…