Feburary 2002. BUSH speaks to the UNITED STATES and makes known his true feelings about IRAQ, IRAN and NORTH KOREA.

BUSH, (to IRAQ): You are are a part of my axis of evil. I’m going to tan your little hide. I’m going to fix your red wagon. You will pay! I mean it. Remember the Taliban? That was just a six-ounce can of whoop-ass. Wait until I open the THREE LITER BOTTLE!!!

BUSH, (to IRAN): You are in the axis of evil, too. I’m not sure why, but you are. Ha!

BUSH, (to NORTH KOREA): Hey! You there! You, too, are a part of my axis of evil! Don’t you think for one second that I’m going to continue Clinton’s soft policies. Nosirree, bub. You have nowhere to hide now that those cheap philandering dems have gotten out of the Oval Office. We’re going to get tough on you evildoers! No more wimpy appeasement! Understood? Right, then. Er, first, we have to take care of those guys that tried to kill my dad.

Flash forward to the end of 2002. NORTH KOREA is firing up an old nuclear reactor, removing security cameras and other monitoring devices placed there to make sure that the reactor was not manufacturing weapons-grade plutonium.

NORTH KOREA (to BUSH): Ha! So, are you going to come and kick our asses now, Mr. Big Stick?

BUSH (distracted): Er, oh… sure. Don’t you screw with us, homeboys.

RUMSFELD: Yeah. We can take Iraq on with one hand and pummel you with the other. Neener!

NORTH KOREA: Bring it. (Continues doing whatever it was doing with the nuclear plant. BUSH and RUMSFELD are aghast.)

BUSH (Stammering): Um, wait a minute. Perhaps we were a bit hasty. Um, let’s talk.

NORTH KOREA: Piss off.

BUSH: Pretty please?

Serious reading on the subject:

Morality Is Not a Strategy, a column by Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek.

Rafe’s weblog entries containing the search term “axis of evil” provides an interesting and serendipitous timeline to recent events with North Korea. The ability to search entries by keyword is a must-have feature for a weblogger. (Snort a Sprocket has it, but it’s currently disabled until I get all my old entries imported into the new system.)

Finally, you can go read Joshua Micah Marshall’s Talking Points Memo, where, after spending December disposing of Mr. Lott, Joshua has moved on to taking the current administration to task for their botched handling of North Korea.