If you thought you were hallucinating that news story today about the Bush administration enlisting, in partnership, the help of Russia and the U.S. Federal Reserve to arrange the transfer of $25 million in allegedly crime-tainted funds from accounts at Macau’s Banco Delta Asia to North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, brace yourself — it’s real ^[1].

For a response so sane that Condi Rice and her Six-Party Talks envoy Chris Hill ought to be required to copy it out 500 times before supper, I recommend the press release and attached letter just put out by the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s ranking Republican, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. She has brought together a group of House Republicans who are asking the Government Accountability Office to check whether our own administration, in its rush to curry Kim, is about to violate America’s own money-laundering and counterfeit laws. A good question. Read all about it ^[2].