A note about that terrific speech on North Korea, delivered last Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute by the U.S. special envoy for human rights in North Korea, Jay Lefkowitz. In his speech, Lefkowitz broke ranks with the State Department’s charade of progress in disarming Pyongyang. Explaining that four years of Six-Party Talks on North Korea have been a failure, he urged a change of course. Coming from someone at State, it was an extraordinary exercise in facing facts; more in my post last Friday on “Man Bites Dog — State Department Envoy Speaks the Truth About North Korea.” ^[1]

On Friday, as can still be found in the cached version on google, Lefkowitz’s speech was posted on the State Department web site, as an entry under “Remarks” for 2008 ^[2].

But today — hey, presto! — the speech has vanished! As I write this, there are no Lefkowitz “Remarks” for 2008 ^[3]. They’re down the Memory Hole.

Contrast that with State’s record of the 2008 “Remarks” of the special envoy to the Six-Party Talks, Chris Hill, who never stops talking ^[4]. Shades of Pyongyang, it gets ever more difficult to tell whether the party line at the Condi Rice State Department represents the interests of America, or of Kim Jong Il.

(Fortunately, State cannot make the Lefkowitz speech entirely un-happen. If the link to the google cached version stops working, you can still find the Jan 17th speech ^[5]on the AEI web site).