Meanwhile, in North Korea...

So, last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to North Korea, where he was supposed to meet with Kim Jong Un and ostensibly make headway on the great relationship that Donald Trump was forging with the rogue state.

That's not exactly what happened. Instead, Pompeo's visit is being declared a disaster — even by those increasingly familiar anonymous sources close to the White House.

For example, Jamie Tarabay at CNN: Pompeo's North Korea Meeting Went 'as Badly as It Could Have Gone'.

It began with great expectations, an eagerly-anticipated meeting with a reclusive leader, and a gift bag that included an Elton John CD.

It ended with a scuttled rendezvous, statements declaring disappointment and stalemate.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's overnight visit to Pyongyang last week failed to demonstrate any progress on denuclearization talks, leading one source with knowledge of the discussions to say the White House felt it went "as badly as it could have gone."

"The North Koreans were just messing around, not serious about moving forward," the source told CNN's Michelle Kosinski, adding that Pompeo had been promised a meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, and so not getting that meeting sent a big message.

Naturally, the conventional wisdom is, as usual, that the Trump Regime is just a bunch of bumbling dum-dums who couldn't see it coming that Kim was never going to denuclearize.

Funny, isn't it, how we keep hearing what incompetent bozos the Trump Regime is, and yet they have managed to consolidate power almost entirely and turn the world's most prominent democracy into an authoritarian state in less than two years.

It's almost like it serves the Trump Regime for everyone to keep believing their fools who are incapable of strategy.

Huh.

In May, ahead of Trump's summit with Kim, I noted that neither party was actually interested in the ostensible goal of the summit: "Kim wants legitimacy — an objective to which he's gotten closer care of Trump even agreeing to the summit, irrespective of whether it now happens. Trump and Bolton want an excuse to launch a preemptive strike on North Korea — as does Mike Pence."

If one understands that the point is not actually detente at all, but a power struggle for dominance masquerading as diplomacy, then it's clear that Pompeo didn't fail. Not when the Trump Regime's agenda is to provoke Kim into looking unreasonable.

It's not a good strategy; it's not a safe or a decent one, either. But it's clear. And we should understand that, even if our political press refuses to, in order to serve up rank propaganda on behalf of the Trump Regime.