COULD BE BUMPY – AT 11:18 A.M. ET:  South Korea just elected a new president who's not as cozy with the U.S. as we might have wished.  From Reuters: 

South Korea's new liberal President Moon Jae-in was sworn in on Wednesday and vowed to immediately tackle the difficult tasks of addressing North Korea's advancing nuclear ambitions and soothing tensions with the United States and China.

Moon said in his first speech as president he would begin efforts to defuse security tensions on the Korean peninsula and negotiate with Washington and Beijing to ease a row over a U.S. missile defense system being deployed in the South.

In his first key appointments, Moon named two liberal veterans with ties to the "Sunshine Policy" of engagement with North Korea from the 2000s to the posts of prime minister and spy chief...

..."I will urgently try to solve the security crisis," Moon said in the domed rotunda hall of the parliament building. "If needed, I will fly straight to Washington. I will go to Beijing and Tokyo and, if the conditions are right, to Pyongyang also."

Spy chief nominee Suh said Moon could go to Pyongyang if it was clear the visit would help resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis and ease military tension on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea is likely to welcome Moon's election but its state media made no mention of his victory on Wednesday.

COMMENT:  This new guy might qualify for the label "peacenik" if he were American.  He seems to be one of these politicians who believe that the object of negotiations is negotiations.  The so-called "Sunshine Policy" never worked.  North Korea went right ahead and built its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

We'll have to see if Moon remains his wobbly self or sees the light and tries to align himself more with American policy.  That may well happen if the real world caves in on him. 

Also, our concern with North Korea doesn't only involve its threat to the South.  It involves its threat to Japan, the Philippines, and, ultimately, to the United States itself.  It is developing ICBM's that can hit Hawaii, Alaska, and our West Coast.  And North Korea has always considered America a mortal enemy.  It was the U.S., after all, that led the successful multi-nation effort to repel the North Korean attempt to take over South Korea in the early 1950s. 

Trump will not allow the new South Korean government to dictate our policy.  Our own lives are involved.

May 10, 2017