Cheney attempting to undercut Bush on North Korea

Recently, the Bush Administration changed its strategy of letting China control negotiations with North Korea to engaging with Kim Jong IL's regime directly.  The State Department is to thank for persuading Bush to begin bilateral talks.  Ironically, this is just a few years after Condoleezza Rice was convinced that bilateral talks would not work.  Now they are on the edge of a breakthrough.

This new approach is upsetting Dick Cheney.  One of the Vice President's loyal soldiers, John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is lobbying hard to undercut any bilateral successes with the North:

Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton is urging GOP lawmakers tooppose the Bush administration’s recent agreement with North Korea toend its nuclear programs, according to House Republican sources.

WhileBolton’s skepticism of North Korea is well-known, this is believed tobe the first time a former top adviser to the president has taken theunusual step of lobbying against a pillar of the administration’scurrent foreign policy. It is particularly surprising given the valuethe administration has placed on loyalty.

If North Korea disarms, that would give the U.S. a reason to stop flexing its sticks as much in Southeast Asia.  Cheney's allies do not want that.

Remember, it was John Bolton that Bush brought in by way of recess appointment because the Senate Foreign Relations Committee refused to confirm him.  And it was this same John Bolton who was responsible for the breakdown in talks with North Korea earlier this decade when he had a different job under Bush.

Bolton desperately wants to prevent any breakthrough with the North, and will go to great lengths to do that -- even if it goes against Bush.  And as we have seen from history, Bolton never does anything without Dick Cheney's approval.

Just think: a sitting Vice President trying to undercut a sitting President.  Has this happened before?