But all too often the Journal and I part ways, as in the case of the Journal’s April 14-15 editorial, “A Pyongyang Joke,” which more justly could be called “A Wall Street Journal Joke,” in which the Journal pretends mightily to be terrified by North Korea’s latest exercise in incompetent belligerency, the launching of a pseudo-ICBM that disintegrated after 80 seconds of flight.
Now some shallow souls might be lulled into complacency by the combination of this and other non-launch events,* not to mention a pair of damp-squib quasi-fission events,† concluding that North Korea just doesn’t know how to play the intimidation game. But the Journal assures us that it’s plenty, plenty intimidated. “[Their] proven [ha, ha] nuclear capability§ is no joke, and it will be even less of one whenever the regime finally masters the ballistic technology that allows them to put parts of the US at risk”—those parts being, I guess, Wake Island and the Lesser Aleutians.
Domestically the Journal is all for economy, but in foreign affairs it has no principle but extravagance. $500 billion for defense? $600 billion? $700 billion? Whatever it is, it isn’t enough! It can’t be enough! Because what the Wall Street Journal is selling isn’t deterrence. What the Wall Street Journal is selling is fear.
Afterwords
What is the Wall Street Journal afraid of? Basically, they’re afraid that if Obama is re-elected, he’ll raise the maximum tax rate from around 35 percent to around 39 percent. That’s it. Four percent. That’s what they’re afraid of. Doesn’t it ever occur to them that if we cut defense spending to around $250 billion a year (which would be plenty), we could cut taxes even more? But logic, of course, means nothing in such cases. The Journal can’t live without fear. It is fear that gives them purpose. They can’t imagine life without it.
*North Korean missiles are even more unreliable than the U.S. anti-missiles that will supposedly counter them, and that’s saying a lot.
†North Korea’s first nuclear test (in 2006) released about 1 kiloton of energy, compared to 10-15 kilotons for the Hiroshima bomb dropped more than half a century before. The second North Korean “bomb” (in 2009) released about 4 kilotons of energy.
§Nuclear “capability” is, of course, the neocon’s lie de jour. “Nuclear capability” means “doesn’t have nuclear weapons of any sort, but might possibly possess one or two ten years from now, perhaps.”
