To get the high-level visits, extended hand, and promises of our help, this post sums up what interim president Micheletti (or any leader) needs to do:
Set up a despotic dynasty, starve your people, break every agreement you sign, defy the resolutions of world bodies, develop and disseminate nuclear technology, test long-range rockets, keep a million under-fed dwarfs in arms, and top it off by abducting a couple of American journalists, and presto! You'll get the ex-leader of the free world — or maybe the ex-free world? — scurrying to the dismal seat of your dysfunctional parody of a dictatorship for a photo opportunity. There will be America groveling at the feet of North Korea in Pyongyang — in Pyong-effing-yang, no less. Isn't that something?
Yeah, that's how you pass the global test.
Who knew that restoring our image in the world relied so much on courting the opinions of the world's thug rulers?
