World at the mercy of two bullies

Surely, no one — not even the president of the United States — could have been genuinely surprised by the reaction of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to Donald Trump’s inflammatory address to the United Nations last week.

Eschewing the decorum and diplomatic phrasing typically employed by speakers who take the podium before the UN’s global gathering, Mr. Trump used his Tuesday address to advance the nationalistic rhetoric that has been the hallmark of his nascent presidency. And in a wide-ranging speech that included critical comments and outright insults aimed at numerous nations and leaders, Mr. Trump saved his darkest words for his most dangerous foe.

Lapsing back into the schoolyard-taunt mode he so seemed to enjoy during his presidential campaign (having referred to Republican rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as “Little Marco” and “Lyin’ Ted,” and Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton as “Crooked Hillary”), Mr. Trump has taken to calling the North Korean dictator “Rocket Man,” presumably because of Mr. Kim’s penchant for provocative test-missile launches.

He did so again at the UN, adding the observation that Mr. Kim is on a “suicide mission” and built on an earlier threat to direct “fire and fury” at North Korea with a promise that the U.S. will “totally destroy” the Asian nation if it continues its nuclear-weapons agenda.

Given that he is, himself, a bully, Mr. Trump surely must have known the North Korean leader would match the American president’s bombast with a measure of his own.

After an underling’s preliminary response that Mr. Trump’s address amounted to the sound of a barking dog, Mr. Kim on Thursday released a personal statement that answered the president’s remarks in no uncertain terms.

Referring to the less-than-diplomatic UN address, the North Korean leader stated Mr. Trump had “made unprecedented rude nonsense one has never heard from any of his predecessors,” and then added, in a clear escalation of insults, that “a frightened dog barks louder.” Mr. Kim also called the president “mentally deranged” and “unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country, and... surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician.”

He ended his statement with this grim promise: “Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation. I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.”

In addition to sending journalists everywhere scrambling to look up the definition of “dotard” (an old person, especially one who has become weak or senile), the closing line surely accomplished the purpose of demonstrating Mr. Kim’s willingness to fight fire with fire, at least on a verbal level.

Now, lamentably, it falls to Mr. Trump to be the bigger man. If Friday morning’s behaviour is any indication, the U.S. president is maintaining his refusal to think before he speaks/tweets, having referred to Mr. Kim as “obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people.”

This mutually assured petulance must be stopped, before the childish taunts of two similarly fragile egos lead one or the other to do something that is stupid beyond either’s obviously limited understanding.

Clearly, these are two men who do not understand the “names will never hurt me” part of one of childhood’s earliest lessons. And rather frighteningly, they are armed with much more than sticks and stones.

(This editorial was published Sept. 23 in the Winnipeg Free Press and distributed by The Canadian Press.)

“Now, lamentably, it falls to Mr. Trump to be the bigger man.”