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Rice: Bolton’s criticism of Bill Clinton’s humanitarian mission to North Korea is ‘ridiculous.’

Soon after news broke of former President Bill Clinton’s trip to North Korea to secure the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, former ambassador John Bolton went on the attack, declaring that it was “perilously close to negotiating with terrorists.” On CNN today, John King asked Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice to respond to Bolton. “That’s, in fact, a ridiculous statement,” replied Rice:

KING: A man who once held your job at the United Nations, John Bolton, saying “it comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists.” Sending Bill Clinton over there and giving North Korea, certainly, a propaganda victory with those photographs. Perilously close to negotiating with terrorists?

RICE: Absolutely not. That’s, in fact, a ridiculous statement. We don’t negotiate with terrorists, that’s the policy of the United States. But this was an unique opportunity for the former president on a private humanitarian mission to obtain the release of two American women who’ve been held for many months. It would have been disgraceful for the United States, having verified that this was a real opportunity to obtain their release, to leave them in captivity.

Watch it:

Earlier this week, when CNN’s Fareed Zackaria mentioned Bolton’s name to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she erupted in laughter, saying, “”[I]f President Obama walked on water, he would say he couldn’t swim.”



38 Responses to “Rice: Bolton’s criticism of Bill Clinton’s humanitarian mission to North Korea is ‘ridiculous.’”

  1. Mike Hunt says:

    The sad thing about Bolton’s uproarious arrogance and accompanying comment is that it was on the Fixed News Channel. It could have stayed with the 30 million or so sheeple who get their “news” from the conservative biased channel. Instead of letting sleeping dogs lie, the MSM picked up his arrogant remark and broadcast it to the rest of us who refuse to watch conservative-biased media. It would be so nice if we could be isolated from that foolishness and not have to read/see later in places like TP or others, the ridiculousness of things that traitors like John Bolton and others of his ilk spew on the conservative-biased media every day.


  2. Mr. Cobb says:

    Whew, for a second there, I thought TP was quoting Condi Rice.


  3. WellstonesGhost says:

    FAIL FAIL FAIL Neocon Bolton IS a joke and the fact that he can get any airtime is another commentary on the state of our nation.

    WHAT was Bolton and the other leaders of the FAIL domino democracy theory in the Middle East ever right on? They got a president slow enough to be led by the nose to Iraq by Cheney and Rumsfeld and hijack US foreign policy and create the biggest foreign policy mistake in history, the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation on trumped up WMD “intelligence”. I would like to see the World Courts judge Bolton, Perles, Addington, Cheney, Rumsfeld for starters. Flavor Taster would eat some gruel the rest of his life at best.


  4. gummble-bee-itch says:

    Mr. Cobb says:
    Whew, for a second there, I thought TP was quoting Condi Rice
    .

    Me, too. Still can’t get used to there being a good Rice in the government.


  5. Mr. Cobb says:

    Mr. Cobb says:
    Whew, for a second there, I thought TP was quoting Condi Rice.

    Me, too. Still can’t get used to there being a good Rice in the government.

    It would be pure mindless madness if they had. I’m always uncomfortable when a lefty blog, links to anything that had to do with the prior adminstration as an authority on anything.


  6. Mr. Cobb says:

    OK, we have a lurking wingnut on the blog skewing the tumbs thing.


  7. Mr. Cobb says:

  8. makete says:

    Mr. Cobb says:

    ——————————————————————————–

    OK, we have a lurking wingnut on the blog skewing the tumbs thing.
    How are they doing that?


  9. Doc Rock says:

    I wonder if the North Koreans had been holding Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly instead of two Amerasian women what the hate-mongering Bolton would have said about any attempt to secure their release????


  10. Intrepid says:

    John Bolton went on the attack, declaring that it was “perilously close to negotiating with terrorists.”

    Translation:

    Let them rot over there in captivity. I don’t give fcuk all if they die there because I’m an arrogant self-centered ignorant doochebag.


  11. evangenital says:

    Bolton is a deranged, incompetent partisan whose only loyalty is to the repiggie party, over and above any loyalty to the nation.

    Podhoertz and Bolton are slamming these young women, knowing full well the history of North Korea’s forays into neighboring lands and seas and kidnapping people. Look at the sheer number of South Koreans and Japanese that have been kidnapped and held for many years by North Korea.

    The corporate-controlled media, ever desirous of a repiggie return to power, will constantly promote the insanity of the neo-con trash and white-wing partisans.

    By the way, Lou Dobbs is a moron.


  12. Patty says:

    Mike Hunt says: ” . . . The MSM picked up [Bolton's]arrogant remark and broadcast it to the rest of us who refuse to watch conservative-biased media. It would be so nice if we could be isolated from that foolishness and not have to read/see later in places like TP or others, the ridiculousness of things that traitors like John Bolton and others of his ilk spew on the conservative-biased media every day.”

    Actually, I’m thrilled at the change in the approach to covering the spewed nonsense that previously went unreported, yet gained crazy momentum among the “Party of Christian, Family Values.”

    Seems clear that the more light is shed on fear-mongering, the more clearly ridiculous it is to a much larger audience. Take Sarah Palin, for example. Thorough coverage of her all-too-shallow political awareness has shown her for the incapable leader she wishes no one knew quite so well.

    Similarly, Mr. Bolton’s nonsense, reported exactly as he presents it, only hurts the reactionary cause — except for the diehard 28 percenters.

    Bring on the truth — always and fully.


  13. Mr. Cobb says:

    Bolton has always seemed to me as a mean-spirited person with some sort of sexual dysfunction for it. Alot of psychology there. He reminds me of a guy who occasionally comes into where I work, exactly. I even call him Yosimite Sam to others there. But more like the dirty Yosimite Sam. Really grizzly looking with a matted red beard, smelling of cigs. Everybody doesn’t like having to deal with him because he’s just so mean and belligerant. But ever since he’s figured out I’m gay, he’s like a little kitten to me. lol Which makes it easier for me on my shift and he’s out the door. Buh bye.


  14. Mike Hunt says:

    Doc Rock says:

    I wonder if the North Koreans had been holding Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly instead of two Amerasian women what the hate-mongering Bolton would have said about any attempt to secure their release????

    I think the North Koreans have too much self respect to want to clutter their prisons with low life scum like Billo the Clown and the Comedian. I wonder, actually, if we could get some nation to take them for us? I understand there are interesting places in Romania and Yemen where Billo and Rush could go.


  15. christopher wiwi says:

    Bolton and his ilk have come to believe that War with it`s death,destruction and hopelessness is the only way to go…..as opposed to Obama`s diplomacy without the death,destruction and hopelessness and guess what? it works.The neo cons and the rest of the re-pukes are on their way of the dinosaur.


  16. Spencer's mom says:

    Here I thought former SoS Rice had grown a conscience and was making an effort to see a wonderful outcome of Clinton’s diplomacy without the veil of shitcolored lenses.

    Should have known it wasn’t Condi Rice.

    Mr. Cobb, the poor trollops have no power beyond lurk and vote down mode. Earlier this week I likened them to preschoolers who refuse to poop in the potty because, in their defiant and immature minds, they feel it is their only means of control. You can find them squatting behind the sofa, soiling their Vitters.

    PEACE


  17. Intrepid says:

    I think the North Koreans have too much self respect to want to clutter their prisons with low life scum like Billo the Clown and the Comedian. I wonder, actually, if we could get some nation to take them for us? I understand there are interesting places in Romania and Yemen where Billo and Rush could go.

    That’s debatable. They (Billo and Rump Rider Limpdick) should’ve been used by Clinton as trade bait to secure the two journalists. What a blockbuster trade that would’ve been.


  18. Intrepid says:

    Dang. Gotta run an errand. Be back later to crap on the trolls who will most likely come here to contaminate this thread and the gene pool.

    cya.


  19. Marie says:

    I’d like to see more of Susan Rice, as I have admired her for some time now. She is an asset to the Obama adminsitration.

    I saw Matthew Dowd be overly critical of the Clinton mission;
    Republicans will never be pleased with anything good that comes out of the Obama administration.


  20. Leftside Annie says:

    That clotheaded assclown and all his cronies deserve to be laughed at. Perhaps then – as in the Star Trek episode – when we all laugh at them, they will cease to exist.

    Uh-oh…is it really nerdy to make reference to Star Trek…?


  21. Mr. Cobb says:

    Should have known it wasn’t Condi Rice.

    She’s in low-profile now. There are no statute of limitations when just following orders.


  22. ohioboy says:

    Mr. Cobb says:

    ——————————————————————————–

    Whew, for a second there, I thought TP was quoting Condi Rice.
    August 9th, 2009 at 10:39 am

    I’ll bet even Condi Rice thinks that John Bolton is a complete and total d-bag.


  23. Shayne says:

    How are the neocons going to get big fat contracts for their friends if we start acting responsibly? How can they keep the middle class down without stealing our money for unnecessary skirmishes?


  24. okie dokie says:

    John Bolton publicly criticizing anybody is ridiculous.


  25. Badger says:

    Bolton and his Ilk have done everything they can to SOUR relations between the US and N. Korea.

    IMHO… the reason was to Promote their ill considered Missile Defense System….Star Wars.

    That’s why George W. Bush torpedoed Clinton’s nascent negotiations with N. Korea. Bush was focused on the Non Existent Missle threat from N. Korea, while ignoring the Real threat from Al Qaeda.

    Possible Rapprochement with N. Korea sends shivers down the backs of Defense Contrators.


  26. Badmoodman says:

    CNN’s Fareed Zackaria

    – - This man really does deserve TP to spell his name correctly: CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.


  27. nellieh says:

    We don’t negotiate with terrorists unless it is to win an election, sell arms to terrorists waging a war in Central America, or overthrough elected governments in South America through assassination.


  28. Mr. Burns says:

    Clinton went to North Korea on a humanitarian mission? But but but… the great and powerful, omniscient Fox News told me that he only went over there to golf. Not to do anything “important.”

    Isn’t it funny how this country refuses to “negotiate with terrorists,” yet we’re perfectly willing to pay them under the table? We gave the Iranians money in the 80’s, just like we gave the Iraqis money too. We funded the Taliban a few decades ago, and the Mujahidin before it. We’ve given money to right wing dictators across South America. The list goes on. We don’t “negotiate with terrorists,” we give them supplies.

    On a more humanistic note, what’s so wrong about negotiating with terrorists anyway? Wouldn’t that mean you’re trying to find out what their basic drive is? Isn’t that what civilized people do? Talk to each other? Try to work things out? Rather than “PREEMPTIVE STRIKE! PREEMPTIVE STRIKE! PREEMPTIVE STRIKE!”

    Morons…


  29. WillWrite4Food says:

    Anyone not in favor of tarring and feathering Bolton at this point?


  30. okie dokie says:

    I consider John Bolton no more than an instigator of conflict and war.
    What kind of “diplomat” holds only positions in hawkish organizations like the NRA, JINSA, AEI, CNP, and PNAC?
    And isn’t it interesting he seems to hold a permanent podium at Fox news and the Wall Street Journal?

    When John Bolton opens his mouth it translates to:

    “Let’s start a war with any country that won’t submit to our ideals or allow us to exploit their wealth, so we can all get richer, and by destroying their culture we will prove our superiority.”


  31. Levi the Dungbeetle says:

    Tar can be washed off.


  32. SP Biloxi says:

    John Bolton is a parasite that continues to spread germ like statements. He is the swine flu of the wingnuts that needs to be disinfected. He needs to get a life and be reminded that he is no longer the UN Ambassador. His comments serve no purpose as this country’s reputation in foreign policy as well as humaniatarian mission need to be restored badly in other countries.

    I’m glad UN Ambassador Rice called Bolton’s comments “ridiculous.” We got someone with some sense in the White House as the UN Ambassador.


  33. wiley says:

    I thought Con-Rice too and was thinking of yelling “catfight!”, before I read the article.


  34. Virtual Pebble says:

    2, 4 & 5. Mr. Cobb and gumble-bee-itch:…

    I had almost the same thought and was really disappointed that it was Susan and not Condi. I keep hoping that some rePulicrite will someday awake from their self-inflicted stupidity and see the light, but as sure as shit isn’t shinola, it wasn’t today. Darn.

    That’s OK though. I’ll settle for Susan Rice slamming that idiot, Bolton. Talk about a dog in a manger or sour grapes, or both. Ah well, now that the mustache of the Apocalypse has spoken his displeasure, let’s hope Sec. Clinton and Susan Rice have a few more things to ruin Mr. Bolton’s day.


  35. kevsters says:

    Is anyone still surprised when Fox News has on a military strategist that does not have much knowledge on military strategy?

    Watch this clip of Ralph, the Taliban should behead that American deserter, Peters, demonstrate he is an absolute tool.

    http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2455


  36. dae says:

    Oh how I wish that the Bush twins Jenna and Barbara fall into the clutches of N. Korea or Iran. Don’t think the N. Koreans would be as receptive to GW as they were to Clinton.


  37. Virtual Pebble says:

    President Obama should have the Walrus Mustache of Doom sent off with President Emeritus Bill on a road trip. Let the Big Dawg show ol’ Mustache how it’s done. Jaw, Jaw, not War, War.

    Mustache doesn’t quite get that yet. He still thinks he can do an inversion of George Marshall or Colin Powell – go from diplomat to soldier, when he isn’t competent for either role.


  38. WDRussell says:

    In future election cycles, remember what these people say and be sure to connect a (R) to their name.



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