ON POLITICS

The Bubble: Trump and Kim Jong Un are an 'axis of idiocy,' liberals say

USA TODAY

Each week, USA TODAY's OnPolitics blog takes a look at how media from the left and the right reacted to a political news story, giving liberals and conservatives a peek into the other's media bubble.

This week, President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stirred up "fire and fury" on both sides of the political fence with their bellicose exchanges over Kim's nuclear weapons program.

Most liberal commentators argued Trump is making things worse with North Korea and said his temperament is ill-suited for the dangerous crisis. Conservatives, on the other hand, tended to defend Trump's statements as bold leadership and to lay the blame for the current crisis at the feet of former Democratic administrations.

Last week: Acosta-Miller rumble was poetry vs. policy, conservatives say

From the left: The 'axis of idiocy'

There is one area where Trump and Kim are equally matched, and that's "lunacy," wrote Bob Cesca for Salon.

Cesca said Kim may be baiting Trump "whose weakness, incompetence and knee-jerk decision-making have been abundantly telegraphed not just to North Korea, but indeed to all of America’s potential overseas enemies."

Cesca said voters did not pay enough attention to "our own erratic leader's infatuation with nuclear weapons before voting for him." Calling him "our own Mad King," he looked back on Trump's "nuke-curious posture", such as when he reportedly asked advisers why the U.S. doesn't use them.

If we emerge from this standoff with North Korea unscathed, voters have an old lesson to learn one more time: We need to take Election Day decisions a little more seriously in the future so we never again confront a nuclear-capable enemy with a leader who’s functionally illiterate and who sets his policies based on what Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade giggle about on Fox & Friends. Choosing national leaders isn’t a game or a whimsical matter. We shouldn’t be casting our votes just to troll people we don’t like on Facebook. And now we’re learning why.

From the right: Thanks Obama

Former presidents Clinton and Obama are at fault for the current crisis with North Korea, Fox News personality Sean Hannity said Tuesday night.

They were "naive" to make deals with the North Korean regime to try to stop its nuclear weapons program, Hannity said. At the same time, he said they "ignored the problem" and "kicked the can down the road."

Clinton and Obama's policies led to the current crisis "that President Trump now has to deal with," the conservative pundit said.

Hannity equated Clinton's 1994 deal with Noth Korea to the nuclear deal Obama made with Iran, warning the U.S. should expect the same result there.

Although he noted that North Korea successfully tested its first nuclear weapon during former president George W. Bush's second term, Hannity did not place any blame for the current crisis on the Bush administration.

From the left: Trump is too 'stupid' and 'dangerous' to handle threat

Trump is in far over his head, according to TalkingPointsMemo editor and publisher Josh Marshall. Marshall grudgingly concedes that the current crisis with North Korea is not "entirely of President Trump's making" but adds that Trump's "volley of threats over recent months appears to have spurred the North Koreans to quicken the pace of their ICBM tests."

"Given the administration's credibility on this issue and generally," Marshall cautioned skepticism about reports that North Korea had successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead.

"The worst possible thing is a President who is stupid, impulsively emotional and has something to prove, which is exactly what we have," Marshall wrote. "The situation with North Korea would be an extreme challenge for a leader with ability and judgment. President Trump is simply too erratic, unstable and dangerous to be in charge in a situation like this."

From the right: N. Korea shows we should worry about China, not Russia

Conservative commentator Laura Ingraham said "China is the key to containing Kim Jong Un's regime," but so far it has proven to be part of the problem, not the solution.

"China has billions propping up two of the most dangerous regimes in the world: North Korean and Iran," she said.

"It's telling that so many of Washington's new-found Russophobes seem to have little problem with the communist regime in China," Ingraham said before listing how and why she sees China as a bigger threat than Russia.

So, don't you think we should spend less time attacking Russia and acting like we're living in the 1985 film, Red Dawn, and maybe spend some more time thinking about what happens to our own freedom and prosperity if someday soon China supplants the U.S. as the world's dominant economic and military power?

From the left: Military should disobey 'unlawful orders' from Trump

The White House has often defended its more controversial policies by saying Trump is simply doing what he promised to do on the campaign trail.

"Well, one of those promises repeatedly made was Donald Trump intends to use nuclear weapons, he's just looking for the opportunity," said Trump biographer David Cay Johnston told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell.

"I certainly hope, by the way, our senior military officers are reading up carefully on refusal of unlawful orders," he said. "If Donald Trump decides he wants to use nuclear weapons in North Korea one hopes that officers will refuse that order as unlawful."

From the right: The hammer is only thing left in the toolbox

A post from the blogger Streiff on Red State said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., hit the nail on the head when he said Trump "is not going to contain the threat" from North Korea, "he's going to stop it."

That Graham, whose "usual role in playing Minime to John McCain on foreign policy" was supportive of Trump's aggressive stance on North Korea is significant, the post said.

"If you parse what Graham is saying it seems to be that he doesn’t think sanctions or talks are going to work and that leaves one tool in our toolbox: the big hammer."

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