What is it about ruthless, brutal dictators that liberals can't resist?  Is it that they treat their citizens the way liberals think all lesser beings than themselves should be treated? 

Whatever it is, they can't help themselves.  Take Iran's "moderate" president, Hassan Rouhani.  Just what is it that's so "moderate" about this thug?  Is it that he doesn't want to kill the Jews as fast as the radicals do?  Is it that he supports allowing women to wear their burlap sacks a few inches above the ankle?  Rouhani would not have been allowed to run for president unless he supported eliminating Israel and enforcing the radicals' religious laws.  That's a given, since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei chooses all candidates for president.

The New York Times has been given glowing coverage to the North Korean leadership recently.  The Times went gaga over Kim Jong-un's sister when she attended the Olympics.  And now this gushing article about how surprising it is that Kim is, at least, half-human.

When senior South Korean envoys sat down this week with North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, they had a series of talking points in hand for a man whose diplomatic experience was limited to meetings with officials from China, Cuba and Syria.

It was a rare chance to make the case for nuclear disarmament directly to Mr. Kim, but it was also an unusual opportunity to size up a young dictator who has remained an enigma even as his weapons tests have terrified the world.

Even so, South Korean officials said, the envoys were not prepared for how "forthcoming and daring" Mr. Kim was over the course of more than four hours on Monday.

I wonder where they got that quote.  I don't see it in any quotes from the summary of the meeting released by South Korea.  I guess the reporter decided to quote himself.

Mr. Kim, who is just 34, surprised the much older South Korean diplomats not only by accepting joint South Korean-United States military drills but also by expressing his willingness to start negotiations with Washington on ending his nuclear weapons program.  He also told them he would suspend all nuclear and ballistic missile tests while talks were underway.

Is it that Kim is such a "surprise" that he would halt nuke and missile tests?  Or does it have to do with the probability that another such test will turn his country into rubble?

It was an eye-catching debut for Mr. Kim in international diplomacy.

How can it be a "debut" if he has already met with officials from "China, Cuba and Syria"?  What are those countries, chopped liver?  Don't they read their own articles?

It was also a remarkable shift coming from Mr. Kim just months after he raised fears of war on the Korean Peninsula by launching a barrage of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.  Often considered a ruthless dictator with a reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons, Mr. Kim was now breaking the usual protocols in hosting the South Korean envoys, who came to appeal to him to change course.

Mr. Kim's "shift" is hardly "remarkable" if you consider his concern that his country will be blown to bits if he doesn't start talking.  And Kim is not "[o]ften considered a ruthless dictator with a reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons."  He is a ruthless dictator with a reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons.  The only people on Planet Earth who don't think so write for the New York Times.

Thankfully, South Korea has a more realistic, mature view of Kim:

"As a leader of a rogue state, he is a tough case to deal with," said Kim Sung-han, a former vice foreign minister of South Korea who teaches at Korea University in Seoul, the South's capital.  "He has the guts but also is very strong in details.  He is ambitious and has a desire to win."

And there's nothing "remarkable" about that.

Kim is engaging in the classic diplomatic game of "if we're talking with each other, we're not shooting at each other."  I expect Kim to drag these denuclearization talks out until his own son – whom he hasn't had yet – is safely ensconced in power.