Ok, maybe not single-handedly, but I can't begin to understand how Cheney could let him do stuff this stupid.

One point: Bush has a damn good crew up there. Very smart. Very good. One of the things you can't complain is that he's surrounded himself with people who are stupid.

He calls off all negotiations with N. Korea, and then doesn't start anything back up in it's place.

Negotiations for what? I've not studied up on this situation, but North Korea is in deep doo-doo. I don't know what "concessions" they were offering, but I suspect that the "negotiations" were for "what are you gonna give us"?

Letting a "rogue state" develop whatever it damn well pleases willy-nilly, giving them a better bargaining position the next time we have to deal with them. Not only that, but things were starting to look pretty positive over there until he called off the talks.

Positive how? And according to who? You'll have to fill me in, What was North Korea about to do?

He backs out of the Kyoto treaty, and doesn't offer any alternative solutions. Nope, it's just me and the kooks, baby!

Ok. Maybe I missed a spot on CNN. But the "treaty" was under discussion, no? Only Congress can ratify a treaty. He pulled us out of the treaty discussion, right?

I can play devil's advocate here, and point out that this might not be bad. If you want to worry about global environmental impact, and you then exempt the "dirtiest" places, are you gaining a lot?

I find it somewhat hard to argue with their stated reasoning there. Basically, developing nations (including some big ones), being exempted, would impact negatively US-based businesses, and citizens. Companies based there wouldn't be forced to pay for the amount of cleaning up and prevention, that they would be in the US.

Which logically follows, that companies would then start up in those countries, move production there, and start polluting. Is this a gain?

National Missile Defense. Yeah, let's unilaterally break an old treaty in such a way that it practically forces our former enemies to take up opposition to the move in order to save face.

First off, the USSR broke said treaty. (Yes, lack of maintenance has them back in compliance :)). Secondly, there's only one other party to the treaty, the USSR, now Russia. (IIRC). China - not signatory. North Korea - not signatory. I don't know the status of Former Soviet States.

Secondly, either party can exit the treaty, with notice.

If its bothering the Chinese and Koreans So Damn Much, why aren't they screaming to sign the treaty, too?

Seems to me that that would be the "logical" step, get a treaty for EVERYBODY to sign.........

Secondly, did you see where Putin/Bush are moving ahead with offensive cuts?

So. The Russian complaints are dropping, because of concessions/negotiations.

Is that "stupid"?

"We want to do this." "Well, we don't want you to" "What if we do this?" "Hmmm... ooookay, maybe, we can work with that".

Seems to me that this is *good* foriegn policy.

Now, he's backed out of the bacteriological warfare treaty that the UN was working on, and apparently, once again, we're the only nation that is not only not interested in the current plan,

Only?

And again, we might have backed out of the development of said treaty. But have you looked at the reasons? Again, not implausible, especially given past history.

he's "spent" the goodwill of his predecessor in forigen policy by basically sticking the big middle finger in the face of all of our allies, as well as a few enemies.

I can't really see where Clinton had a ton of "goodwill" there to spend. Maybe I'm missing something.

But OTOH, so damn what? Most of our "allies" are fair-weather at best. Most of our enemies only respect strength and ability.

I can't see where what you've enumerated is "stupid" with those factors.

Addison