Hotline After Dark -- We Be Kim Jong Il'in

North Korea was in the news last night but a few reporters managed to tie it to Mark Foley.

MSNBC's Shuster: "The Republican Party usually benefits when foreign policy security issues take center stage. Today, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader John Boehner, under fire in the Foley page scandal, were quick to issue statements about standing with President Bush on the international community to isolate North Korea" ("Hardball," 10/9).

Columnist Charles Krauthammer: "Clearly this is Karl Rove at work again. First he gets oil prices dropped by a phone call to the oil companies and then gets North Korea to explode a bomb as a way to get the Foley affair off the front pages. The man is a genius" ("Special Report," FNC, 10/9).

And Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) got some TV time to talk about it:

Richardson: "I'm really worried about it because I believe that they have hunkered down. They feel that diplomacy is not working. ... It's another way, also, to get the attention of the international community. They have felt, I believe, that there's too much attention on the Middle East, on Iraq" ("AC 360," CNN, 10/9).

More Richardson: "Now the time has come to, I believe, offer a carrot-and-stick policy. The carrot is you dismantle your nuclear weapons, we don't attack you, and you get food and fuel from the six-party talks. That deal was negotiated about a year and a half ago. That's a good deal. Let's just move forward and get it done before this escalation continues, and an arms race in Asia continues, and North Korea has time to develop even more nuclear weapons. They probably have anywhere from three to six" ("Situation Room," CNN, 10/9).

MSNBC's Matthews: "Why do you think we went to Iraq? The real reason, not the sales pitch. Why do you think we went there?"

Richardson: "I believe the president wanted to avenge his father, who I think conducted a very sound foreign policy in Iraq, and the fact that it wasn't terminated, the war, that we didn't finish the job."

Matthews: "Well, do you think the impulse was Oedipal or filial?"

Richardson: "Those are words that I don't understand."

Matthews: "One is you are trying to knock your dad's block off because you want to beat him out. The other one is they tried to shoot my daddy, I'm going to get even. So which is it?"

Richardson: "I think it's more, I want to get even, I want to get even, we didn't finish the job."

On WH '08: "I haven't decided yet. I got to get through my re-election in New Mexico. I've got to elect a bunch of Democratic governors. By the way, we're going to get a majority. There are 22 of us. I bet you we get to 26 governorships. That's the unknown story there" ("Hardball," MSNBC, 10/9). [EMILY GOODIN]