Prowler

THE TWO BILLS COME DUE

Former President Bill Clinton has been in almost nonstop contact with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson since envoys from North Korea began sitting down with Richardson late last week to discuss the crisis between the U.S. and the rogue nation.

Richardson has said that the North Koreans came to him because they could not get meetings with Bush Administration officials. Richardson, to his credit, while keeping Clinton up to date on his meetings, has also been passing along information to the State Department and the National Security Council.

Richardson was not asked by the Bush Administration to cancel his meetings with the North Korean contingent, most of whom are attached to the country's U.N. delegation. But Richardson also did not seek White House approval for the meetings, either. By the time Richardson spoke with State Department and White House officials, the meetings were already on track.

"You know that Clinton is going to step into this, if for no other reason than to try to salvage his administration's reputation on how they handled North Korea in 1994," says a Republican staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "He's going to muck this up, he can't help himself."

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2003