After a deluge of articles about the race yesterday in the local press, today seems to be a slow news day locally. Nationally, the Foley scandal will of course be pushed aside by North Korea's (apparent) nuclear test, which is a direct result of the global failure of diplomacy that has characterized this Administration's approach towards foreign policy since day one. We are in a worse strategic position with Bush's entire "axis of evil" than on the day it was declared, and in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea we are left with no good choices. James Baker's study group on Iraq will report to the president as much.

We need a huge change in direction in this country, and it's clear we can't afford to wait until 2008.

We need it in 29 days.

Update: Read Josh Marshall:

The bomb-grade plutonium that was on ice from 1994 to 2002 is now actual bombs. Try as you might it is difficult to imagine a policy -- any policy -- which would have yielded a worse result than the one we will face Monday morning.

Talking tough is great if you can make it stick and back it up; it is always and necessarily cleaner and less compromising than sitting down and dealing with bad actors. Talking tough and then folding your cards doesn't just show weakness it invites contempt. And that is what we have here.

The Bush-Cheney policy on North Korea was always what Fareed Zakaria once aptly called "a policy of cheap rhetoric and cheap shots." It failed. And after it failed President Bush couldn't come to grips with that failure and change course. He bounced irresolutely between the Powell and Cheney lines and basically ignored the whole problem hoping either that the problem would go away, that China would solve it for us and most of all that no one would notice.

Do you notice now?