Back in February, I emailed our senators a simple question:

On Dec 24, 2016, I emailed you to ask if you agreed with the president’s tweet that we should restart the nuclear arms race.  You haven’t answered.

Now it appears that the president, in a private talk with Putin, has denigrated the limitations of the most recent START agreement.

If this proves to be the case, will you support a nuclear arms race?  If so, to what end?

Yesterday I received a reply from Johnny Isakson:

 Thank you for contacting me regarding North Korea. I appreciate hearing from you and I am grateful for the opportunity to respond.

Kim Jong-un has chosen to follow along the same destructive path as his father, Kim Jong-il. Kim has refused to comply with regional and international pressure to discontinue North Korea’s nuclear weapons program by carrying out a nuclear test and launching short and long-range missiles. In July 2017 alone, North Korea has conducted 2 missile tests, and 22 since November 2016.

It is clear that Kim Jong-un’s repeated, unacceptable and deplorable threats cannot be allowed to continue. I support the additional sanctions placed on North Korea through H.R.3364, the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and urge the President to implement this law fully.

North Korea has continued to show a severely reckless attitude toward the welfare of its own citizens by committing serious human rights violations and by continuing to pour resources into nuclear weapons. We must continue to support our allies that live under constant threat from North Korea, and we also must urge China to place greater economic and political pressure on the Kim regime. North Korea has shown that it is a threat to the entire world, not just the United States. Without China participating in this negotiation, it is near impossible to hold North Korea accountable. Additionally, I am strongly in favor of increasing our missile defense capabilities and working to ensure that we are prepared for any missile threat.

We as a nation must keep all of our options available, including the use of force if necessary, to protect the American people and remove the threat of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

(highlights mine)

At least I think he’s answering my nuclear arms race question.  Since none of my congresscritters have been at all responsive to my requests for position statements, I stopped tallying them over at the Easy Answers page.  I may have sent something specific to North Korea at some point, either via email or ResistBot.  Who can remember?  We’ll just pretend that this answers my nuclear arms race question.

Because it does.

The Trumpsters are hooting and flinging poo because their Current Embarrassment isn’t afraid to call North Korea’s unstable leader names, unlike his wussy predecessors who used sanctions and suasion to keep things calm-ish on the peninsula.  He’s not afraid to threaten nuclear annihilation to the madman who rules that country.  That’ll show him, crow the Trumpsters—USA! USA!

Neither they nor their Chief Poo Flinger ever think that they will also kill the 25 million humans who are trapped in the Hermit Kingdom, nor of the 51 million humans who live next door in our ally, South Korea, nor of the 127 million who live in Japan.  That’s not important. Showing Kim Jong-un who has the bigger club is what’s important.^[1]

So if we need an analogy to help us understand the difference between the “Bomb them!” crowd and the deliberate approach pursued by sane politicians, I offer this video:

Obama, the Bushes, Clinton: they’re the English police dealing with a crazy man.  The Current Embarrassment: he’s the St. Louis police department.

I suppose it all boils down to which end result you’re after.

—————

^[1] And by “club” I mean “penis.”