THE REALITY WE FACE - AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  While administration officials in Washington will no doubt glory in the legalisms they will throw at North Korea, The Times of London presents a stark, well-reported picture of just what we are now facing. 

Oh, by the way, we are cutting our anti-missile budget.  Thought you'd want to know:

The world’s intelligence agencies and defence experts are quietly acknowledging that North Korea has become a fully fledged nuclear power with the capacity to wipe out entire cities in Japan and South Korea...

...This puts it ahead of Iran in the race for nuclear attack capability and seriously alters the balance of power between North Korea’s large but poorly equipped military and the South Korean and US forces ranged against it...

...Now North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, has the potential to kill millions in Japan as well as the South, and to lay waste US bases and airfields in both countries. It will force military strategists to rethink plans for war in Korea and significantly increase the potential costs of any intervention in a future Korean war.

COMMENT:  I suspect it will be only hours, days at most, before we're told by some administration guy or a friendly journalist that this is all Bush's fault.  Believe me, it's coming, but I think it will backfire this time.

It's been clear in recent weeks that Dick Cheney's critiques of Obama have struck home.  The North Korean test will magnify that effect.  Americans will ask themselves who they'd rather have defending them right now.  If enough Americans start feeling a newfound warmth toward the Bush administration, that is major trouble for President Obama.

May 25, 2009