Oct 28, 2002 5 min read

After North Korea’s disclosure of its uranium-enrichment program, attention naturally is focused on what the United States will make of a changed equation in Northeast Asia. Indications are that the U.S. is thrown off-balance, as much as South Korea and Japan have been. Washington’s Korea-policy crew is divided on the appropriate response, but what has been tentatively made clear are two points. The first is that the U.S. is coordinating a joint approach – together with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, with the European Union in a supporting role – to put pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions. The second, more crucial point, is that the probability remains of normalization talks between Washington and Pyongyang eventually taking place, in spite of suggestions that America ought to feel no compulsion to do so now. As long as the U.S. keeps up with the reconnoitering, the outlook is fair.

But if the U.S. is the fulcrum on which the issue will swing, Japan can provide considerable leverage to the motion. It is purely a matter of evolution. If Japan backs off, the U.S. is bound to shut out the Koreans indefinitely. That cannot be good.

On testing students for tobacco:

Schools used to employ the element of surprise to nab students puffing cigarettes between classes. Now, some schools have turned to science as tobacco is added to the ever-expanding list of drugs for which students are being tested. …

While students shouldn’t be smoking, testing students for tobacco use is absurd.

… Schools have been concerned primarily with smoking on campus or during organized school events. … But with urine tests, even students who smoke while away from school would be barred from participating in extracurricular activities.

We agree that some drug testing might be appropriate. …

However, if the captain of the cross country team is smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day, we doubt he’ll be winning many races.

Certainly, every high school has some students who use drugs. But how big a problem does that constitute? Does it warrant a dragnet that might subject millions of innocent students to intrusive, degrading urine tests?

Furthermore, drug tests target the students who are least likely to abuse drugs in the first place. …

You’d have better luck testing all the students who don’t get involved in after-school activities. They’re also the ones most likely to be smoking. …

But making them urinate in a cup to find out if they have been smoking is a violation of their civil rights, in our opinion. Not to mention a ridiculous and ineffective school policy.

On North Korea’s capabilities:

North Korea’s startling admission that it has conducted a major nuclear-weapons development program in violation of a 1994 accord has prompted hawks in Congress to demand that the U.S. cancel key economic assistance to that impoverished country. But as unsettling as the news is, a more diplomatic response is needed.

There’s no doubt now that the hawks were right when they criticized the 1994 agreement with the Clinton administration. They warned then that the accord contained too many loopholes to accomplish its aim of dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program. …

But some in Congress warned that the agreement also permitted North Korea to retain indefinite control over spent fuel rods from a five-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon – a concession that gave Pyongyang the capacity to rapidly build nuclear weapons if it decided to violate the terms of the accord.

North Korea’s admission that it has done exactly that comes as the United Nations Security Council is preparing to a vote on a resolution that would readmit weapons inspectors to Iraq. …

But North Korea is not Iraq, and the call by some hawks for the United States to immediately cancel work on the light-water reactors and suspend fuel oil shipments is premature. … North Korea is still a danger, to be sure. But as long as there is even a slim chance of a diplomatic solution to this danger, it should be fully exploited.

On judicial nominations:

Republicans in Washington are complaining loudly and bitterly that Senate Democrats are holding up President Bush’s judicial nominations. They have short memories.

For almost the whole of the Clinton presidency, Republicans who then controlled the Senate dragged their feet on court nominations, which over the past 15 years have become politicized to the point of paralysis. The federal courts are choking on backlogged cases and the Senate shrugs and goes about the job of making matters worse.

… What is not appropriate, though, and what is unacceptable, is to refuse to act on nominees. The courts need judges, the Constitution demands respect and the nominees deserve the common courtesy of reasonably prompt action. Both parties have been reckless about this matter, Democrats today and Republicans before.

American democracy was designed to encourage compromise. With authority frequently divided between the parties, government can achieve little without the grease of compromise. …