Because it worked out so well the last time...

Not long ago we learned that the State Department had facilitated arrangements for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to travel to North Korea. It’s a terrible idea, of course, to reward Kim Jong Il’s bad behavior--indeed, his bad nature--by sending cultural envoys with the blessing of our top diplomats. (See Powerline’s Scott Johnson on the subject here.)

But it would be something just short of disastrous if our top diplomat herself--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice--were to go along, no? That is just what she is planning to do, according to a report from NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, in an appearance on The Chris Matthews Show. According to Mitchell, whose reporting consistently reflects access to very good sources at the highest levels of our diplomatic bureaucracy, Rice will be going to North Korea with the philharmonic when it travels to the dark nation in February.

George W. Bush included North Korea in the Axis of Evil some six years ago. And he famously told Bob Woodward: "I loathe Kim Jong Il. I’ve got a visceral reaction to this guy because he is starving his people."

But more recently, Bush sent a letter to the man he once derided as a "pygmy," in an effort to get the North Korean leader to made good on his disarmament commitments--a triumph of hope over experience, as Samuel Johnson once said in a different context. Bush was even said to have addressed Kim Jong Il as "Mr. Chairman" in the letter, suggesting a softening of his earlier views.

A letter is one thing. But a cultural exchange featuring America’s top diplomat is quite another.

Will Bush let her go?