Unsurprisingly former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton did not have a whole lot of nice things to say about Hillary Clinton’s North Korea policies:

Hillary Rodham Clinton prefaced her first trip abroad as secretary of State with a speech Friday sketching out various Obama administration views regarding her Asia itinerary. Her approach on the crucial issue of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program embodies an overwhelming — and unfortunate — continuity with the Bush administration. This is not at all surprising, given the president’s campaign rhetoric.  What is surprising is the sheer innocence in which the substance has been packaged, a naivete extending well beyond North Korea.

Remember Bolton in the past relentlessly criticized the Bush Administration’s North Korea policy by even claiming at one point “It’s shameful“.   So since Clinton is continuing the “shameful” Bush policy I don’t think you can say Clinton is being naive, she is just doing what the past two administrations have been doing and that is payoff the North Koreans to behave with little to nothing in return. [LA Times]

Here is another shot Bolton takes at Clinton:

Take, for example, her repeated references to “smart power,” presumably meant to distinguish the brainy Obama team from its predecessor. Like Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography, we are apparently meant to know smart power when we see it. Every incoming administration is entitled to a few weeks of touting its superiority, but the bumper stickers need to disappear when overseas travel begins, replaced by real policy, not slogans. Otherwise, observers would conclude that the president, and perhaps his secretary of State, are still running for office, rather than realizing they are already there.

All I know is that paying off the North Koreans for little to nothing in return is not “smart power”.   Bolton takes plenty more shots at Clinton such as how she criticizes Bush for walking away from the first Agreed Framework, but she now admits that the North Koreans have a secret uranium program which was why the Bush administration abandoned the Agreed Framework in the first place.  So by criticizing Bush for abandoning the Agreed Framework that means she is in favor rewarding bad behavior for the sake of diplomacy.  Bolton calls her “breathtakingly confused”.

Bolton also goes after Clinton for not saying anything about North Korea’s nuclear proliferation to Syria as well as challenging her to actually do anything meaningful for the families of kidnapped Japanese citizens:

The families appreciate empathy, but what they really want is accountability from Pyongyang.

Accountability is in short supply in regards to any agreement signed with North Korea and so far all signs are that the policies of appeasement will continue.