Talking About Talks

U.S. State Department emissaries usually couch their messages in diplomatic niceties. But there was little sugar-coating in Seoul last week when the administration's pointman on arms control, John Bolton, delivered a blistering denunciation of North Korea's Kim Jong Il, labeling Kim a tyrannical rogue state leader. "For many in North Korea," he said, "life is a hellish nightmare." Bolton also warned that Kim was using the threat of weapons of mass destructionnamely, a nuclear weapons programto blackmail the international community with "extortionist demands." The White House signed off on Bolton's rhetoric. According to an administration official: "The...