Hugh Hewitt notices the tinny squeak of Nancy Pelosi's denunciation of the North Korea missile tests:

Hugh emphasizes Pelosi's apparent ignorance of North Korea's history of barbaric behavior: "North Korea is moving outside the circle of acceptable behavior."

My complaint with this fluffy wisp of a non-statement is not its ignorance of history but its casual use of empty phrases. Hugh's point is well taken but the language is probably just a careless choice of words. What in the world is "the circle of acceptable behavior"? This sounds like some sort of prissy club in which goody-two-shoes congratulate themselves on how wonderful they are. By god I would want to move out of it too.

The real howler in the statement is Pelosi's not so strident call that "[w]e must use every possible tool to stop North Korea'’s unacceptable, provocative actions including six party, multilateral, and bilateral diplomatic negotiations. " Every possible tool? You mean air strikes and nukes? Really?

I suspect the phrase "every possible tool" was a nice tough sounding phrase used to camouflage the otherwise whiny tone of the statement. Liberal Democrats don't really mean "every possible tool" they mean "the tools of the circle of acceptable behavior" - like six party, multilateral, and bilateral diplomatic negotiations.

Pelosi's statement is empty and vacuous, which is not surprising as it accurately reflects the Democrat's foreign policy.