One of Condi Rice's State Department undersecretaries, Nick Burns, was dispatched to four Sunday shows to discuss North Korea.

A small name was probably sent out so not to give North Korea the satisfaction of "getting the White House's attention" by conducting missile tests.

Sending nobody would have accomplished that too.

But they needed to send somebody out to hog air time.

Otherwise, the Sunday air would be filled with analysis of how the Bushies have completely botched the North Korea situation over the last five years.

Burns, and his fellow Republicans from the Senate, had one main talking point: Don't ask us to fix this. Ask China.

Within a minute on NBC's Meet The Press, Burns sought to shift responsibility away from Bush and onto China:

...frankly we think it's time for China to use its influence with North Korea. The Chinese have influence, certainly more than the United States and the other members of the international community, dealing with this problem. China now has an opportunity to put its best foot forward, to send the North Koreans a direct message that these missile tests cannot be tolerated...

Over on CBS' Face The Nation, Sen. John McCain echoed the "not us" message:

I believe that China is the key. They're the only ones that really have significant influence over North Korea. If we make it clear to China that we understand they're emerging on the world stage as a super power, they should behave like one and this will be a defining issue in our relations with China.

And on CNN's Late Edition, Sen. Lindsey Graham was even more pointed:

...the Chinese are the key to this. The Chinese are hanging by a thread politically with the Congress now over trade policy. If they don't really come to the table harder with North Korea, they're going to be hanging by a thread in terms of international diplomatic policy.

Why put the onus on China?

For one, it's a legit place for the onus, as China does have leverage. So, folks in the foreign policy establishment will approve and give political cover.

At the same time, the Bushies don't really want a deal with the North Koreans, and they'd rather have people blame the Chinese when failure persists.

Remember, as LiberalOasis has regularly noted, to conservatives, the North Korea issue is really about China.

They view China as a potential rival superpower that must be constricted.

They want the North Korean dictatorship to collapse, not to liberate its people, but so they can get a friendly unified Korean government, along with US troops, on the Chinese border.

They view any deal with North Korea to give up nukes in exchange for economic aid and/or security guarantees as shoring up the government.

They'd rather wait North Korea out. (Even the Bushies don't have much stomach for Korea War II.)

But waiting around during a nuclear build-up looks ridiculous to the American public and the rest of the world. So they have to go through the motions.

They create the "six-party talks" that include China, which are designed to give the appearance of touchy-feely multilateralism, but are also designed to fail.

Why? Because the Bushies' end goal is to simply keep China down (instead of engaging China and tying human rights to further economic growth.)

Ergo, nothing they propose gets much support from the Chinese.

Now, China doesn't want a nuclear North Korea because it could lead to other Asian countries going nuclear, which would reduce China's stature in the region. The regional destabilization would also hurt China's economy.

But China also doesn't want North Korea to collapse, because that could cause regional destabilization too, as well as lead to US troops on its border. So it cynically seeks to maintain the status quo of a divided Korea, half oppressed.

There is common ground to be had with China that would allow us to comprehensively pressure North Korea.

If the Bushies didn't have a completely unrealistic approach to China that has strained relations, we could more easily focus on our shared goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

The elected official that came closest to articulating this dynamic yesterday was Dem Sen. Chris Dodd, on Face The Nation:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, Senator, help me to understand: Why would the Chinese be
reluctant to go along on this? Why would they be reluctant to impose sanctions? Are they worried about taking down--or that government collapsing in North Korea?

DODD: Well, part of that, but not so much, that, I think, but they ... don't want to have a human wave pouring into that northern or southern border of China and northern border of North Korea

SCHIEFFER: If that government collapsed in North Korea.

DODD: If that would happen...Or, if you had terrific sanctions that would deprive the food, medicines -- other things that the South Koreans and the Chinese provide...

...that's why their agenda is a bit different than ours...And they're worth listening to on this. China's not our enemy on this.

They don't want an arms race in that part of the world any more than we do. They don't want North Korea posing any more difficulties than they already are.

Now, I'm not suggesting we ought to go along with exactly what the Chinese suggest, but listen to them.

What's lacking in Dodd's dissection is an explanation why the Bushies don't work better with China:

Because the Bushies have a fundamentally flawed foreign policy vision that frustrates cooperation, stokes instability, and does nothing to spread freedom.

Dodd is by no means alone. Until Dems start making clear how their vision is better suited to solve international crises, there will be little debate about our foreign policy direction and Bush's policies will continue unabated.