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In the never-ending battles between the Bush administration's pragmatists and uberhawks, the U.S. decision to de-list North Korea from the terrorism blacklist marked a huge defeat of the Vice President Dick Cheney and a victory for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

But this was a deal that could, and should, have been done at the beginning of Bush's first term. As John Bolton, our former United Nations ambassador and a harsh critic of the deal rightly said, this deal is "the same thing that the State Department was prepared to do six years ago. If we are going to cut this deal now, it's amazing we didn't cut it back then."

It was not done then because Cheney's views were then ascendant. In the meantime, North Korea became a dangerous nuclear power.

Now, with their legacies in mind, Rice finally convinced the president they should try to change North Korean behavior through painstaking diplomacy, rather than pursue the chimera of regime change.

Bush's change of heart has infuriated Republican superhawks. "This is a sad, sad day," said Bolton. "I think we've been taken to the cleaners."

I do not believe nation-building in Iraq is going to be the issue come November -- whether things get better there or worse. I think nation-building in America is going to be the issue.

It's the state of America now that is the most gripping source of anxiety for Americans, not al-Qaida or Iraq. Anyone who thinks they are going to win this election playing the Iraq or the terrorism card -- one way or another -- is, in my view, seriously deluded. Things have changed.

Up to now, the economic crisis we've been in has been largely a credit crisis in the capital markets, while consumer spending has kept reasonably steady, as have manufacturing and exports. But with banks still reluctant to lend even to healthy businesses, fuel and food prices soaring and home prices declining, this is starting to affect consumers, shrinking their wallets and crimping spending. Unemployment is already creeping up and manufacturing creeping down.

The straws in the wind are hard to ignore: If you visit most car dealerships in America today you will see row after row of unsold SUVs. And if you own a gas guzzler already, good luck.

On top of it all, our bank crisis is not over. Two weeks ago, Goldman Sachs analysts said that U.S. banks may need another $65 billion to cover more write-downs of bad mortgage-related instruments and potential new losses if consumer loans start to buckle. Since President Bush came to office, our national savings have gone from 6 percent of gross domestic product to 1 percent, and consumer debt has climbed from $8 trillion to $14 trillion.

The Old Town Warren Theatre partners informed the city of Wichita last November that the theater was losing money. They proposed that the city refinance their current loan and loan them additional dollars. The refinancing would allow the addition of another screen and conference space. One of the main problems is overhead costs. This will help by providing economies of scale.

The partners stated that their bankers wouldn't loan them the money because the interest rate would be too high to put the theater in a positive financial position. They told us that if the city could not help them out, the theater would close.

We felt that it was imperative that the Old Town Warren stay open.

The Old Town Cinema Redevelopment Project was created in 1999. The city invested more than $9.4 million in land acquisition and construction of public improvements in the cinema area. At the time the project was created, city staff and City Council members believed it was a sound business decision for the city and would help move our city forward. The Old Town area has become one of the city's main tourist venues and continues to attract new workers to Wichita.

The $9.4 million worth of infrastructure improvements were financed with bonds that are backed by a tax increment financing district. Under a TIF, the additional property taxes generated by new development are used to repay bonds. No dollars go to private developers. When the TIF expires, the additional property taxes are distributed to all three local government entities. The city's share is approximately 27 percent of the total.

The gun lobby has finally won its dream ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, but could this be just the breakthrough that can finally lead to sensible gun control?

Going beyond even what the Bush administration had asked of it, a 5-4 majority of the justices held that "the right to bear arms" is a personal right and not, as federal courts largely have ruled since 1939, a provisional right pegged to maintaining public safety.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the Constitution's Second Amendment asserts "the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home."

It is hard to imagine that the Founding Fathers intended to be the willing armorers of urban gang warfare. But so it goes. The court has ruled. That's that.

In quashing the District of Columbia's near-total ban on handguns, the court has kicked over a hornets' nest of litigation. The National Rifle Association already has filed a challenge to Chicago's similarly, if not quite comparably, stringent restrictions. Lawsuits against New York City and San Francisco seem certain.

I want to applaud the public interest that has followed the Old Town Warren Theatre owners' request for a $6 million loan to fund improvements to their theater in Old Town Square. Public feedback is essential to our democracy and to this council's decision-making process.

But at the end of the day -- after the citizens have spoken and after city staff has done its due diligence -- the members of the Wichita City Council are the seven people who were elected and entrusted to make such decisions.

A primary responsibility of the council is economic development -- the fiscal duty of using public resources to support local businesses, create jobs and improve the quality of life of Wichitans. To meet those goals, this city government and municipal governments across the country employ various economic development tools. Economic development is proven public policy.

The $6 million Warren Theatre loan embraces that tradition of proven public policy. It is targeted economic development. It enhances our community goal of continuing downtown revitalization efforts.

The Warren loan represents a sound investment in Wichita's premier entertainment district, the city's top destination spot that has enjoyed national recognition and top planning awards.

In keeping with his messiah image, Barack Obama might have been more at home in Bethlehem, Pa., than in Unity, N.H., when he and his "former" nemesis, Hillary Clinton, opened their new act on the road to mixed reviews.

We are supposed to forget everything they said about each other during the primaries. They didn't really mean it; or did they? This is why so many people are cynical about politicians. You never know if they are telling you what you want to hear, or what they hope you'll swallow in spite of evidence to the contrary.

As recently as late February, Hillary Clinton told "The 700 Club" that the "phenomenon" associated with Obama's candidacy "dangerously oversimplifies the complexity of the problems we face, the challenge of navigating our country through some difficult, uncharted waters." Has Obama become a ship's captain in so short a time?

In March on CNN's "Newsroom," Clinton questioned Obama's readiness to be commander in chief. She said she and Sen. John McCain had crossed "the commander in chief threshold.... You will have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy." Is he now suddenly ready?

On MSNBC's "Hardball," Clinton mocked Obama for arguing that "living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face big, complex, international challenges the next president will face."

Sen. Barack Obama has been wearing his American flag lapel pin again, most appropriately during his speech this week in Missouri on patriotism. His critics may call that a flip-flop. I call it a sign that he's learning.

As recently as the debate before the Pennsylvania primary, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee gave eloquent reasons why he didn't think a flag pin was as important as the patriotic beliefs he held in his heart. But flag pin lovers vote, too.

It's too bad that so many voters invest so much in symbols, but that's a reality of politics and human nature. Polls show a small but not insignificant slice of voters continue to question Obama's patriotism, especially in white, working-class areas.

Voters don't all have a lot of time or inclination to spend analyzing issues and biographies, no matter how much I, as a news media worker, wish they did. They are more likely to look for signs and symbols that indicate the candidate, if elected, will do the right thing once they're behind closed doors.

Sen. John McCain's heroic wartime biography gives the presumptive Republican nominee a big edge in patriotism points. Obama, the beneficiary of a rapid rise to prominence, also is burdened by it. A lot of people don't yet know who he is and what he believes. Worse, he has been dogged by Internet-fueled smears, including false rumors that he will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance, place his hand over his heart during the national anthem or wear an American-flag pin on his lapel.

Being shot down may not qualify one to be president, as retired Gen. Wesley Clark infamously said recently. But what men do under fire might tell us about the character we may discover in a president.

Clark's precise words, aimed at undermining John McCain's executive experience, were: "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." In fairness, Clark also praised McCain's heroism, saying that he honored his service as a prisoner of war and even that "he was a hero to me."

Predictably, Republicans were outraged and Democrats were outraged at the GOP's outrage. For his part, Barack Obama condemned the remarks and distanced himself from his surrogate general.

McCain made a few tepid remarks, but mostly let others put Clark in his place. And though McCain is clearly content to use the iconic image of his younger pilot self for campaign purposes, he also has shrugged off his heroism.

"It doesn't take a great deal of effort to get shot down," McCain himself is fond of saying.

Patriotism is love of country, and it's also love of community. When our community is in danger, we rally together to fight for it.

The Machinists union is sounding the warning -- an early call to gather and fight for the aircraft industry, which is in danger of joining so many other industries in leaving for cheaper labor.

Aircraft has long been the lifeblood of Wichita. Many people can find "Rosie the Riveter" in their family tree, because Wichita churned out bombers during World War II.

When you walk down an assembly line, you can find third- and fourth-generation employees whose grandparents worked in the factories. The institutional knowledge in our work force is invaluable to the industry. Because of that, the industry is very healthy and profitable, and Wichita companies are innovative and put out high-quality products customers want to buy. One would think they wouldn't tinker with that success.

Yet it seems that some corporate leaders, with their eye on the bottom line above all else, don't understand this. An alarming plan, titled "Project Pelican," recently was discovered, detailing a Hawker Beechcraft plan to open a full final aircraft assembly facility in Chihuahua, Mexico.

South Koreans of all stripes have filled the streets of Seoul the past several weeks to protest the resumption of American beef imports. The question in the minds of many people both in Seoul, where I live, and in my native United States is: Why?

In truth, most of us don't understand it, but there are forces at work that go to the very core of what makes the modern world turn -- free trade.

Free trade has yielded incredible benefits around the world. The growth of economies, the reduction of poverty and the spread of information everywhere are all hugely positive effects that speak to strengths of the American global order.

However, all is not well, and the lesson that Americans can learn from the recent protests is the importance of transparency in global trade.

There were many reasons why many people in South Korea, a wealthy but little understood nation, reacted with such hostility to the resumption of beef imports. Many of them boil down to paranoia and a sensationalist news media that decided to blow relatively minor concerns far out of proportion. (One scientist went on record saying that Koreans were more susceptible genetically to mad cow disease than other peoples.) However, many Koreans I spoke to cited legitimate concerns over the safety of U.S. meat processing.

It's getting harder and harder to remain deluded. Each day brings new facts to drag our heads out of the sand. Two weeks ago, the New York Times reported that four Western oil giants were on the verge of signing no-bid contracts that would return them to Iraq, the third-most bountiful petroleum playground on the planet. It was the kind of news that Big Oil lives for.

We also learned this week that a group of American advisers, led by a team from the State Department, played a key role in drawing up the contracts between the companies and the Iraqi government.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney, both former oil-company executives, have long tried to tell us this war was about terrorism, about weapons of mass destruction, about bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people, about anything but oil.

Said Bush: "We cannot wait for the final proof: the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

He didn't wait. It didn't matter that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the United States. Or that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The troops were sent into battle in early 2003, and there is still, after more than five years and more than 4,000 American deaths, no end to the war in sight.

There is something classically American about waking up to the smell of sizzling bacon, coming together with family around a holiday ham, and enjoying a hot dog at the ballgame. But these traditions could become much harder to celebrate because of federal ethanol mandates that are jeopardizing our nation's food supply.

Congressional mandates are diverting millions of bushels of corn out of the nation's food supply and into ethanol refineries. The original idea was to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and our dependence on foreign oil -- in theory, a great idea.

But in practice, ethanol mandates have squeezed the supply of corn, helping drive prices through the roof -- in fact, corn prices have tripled in recent years, leading to significant jumps in prices for consumers across Kansas and around the country.

This trend is nothing less than a disaster for thousands of farm families across Kansas who depend on corn to feed and raise livestock.

And customers are suffering, too. Families are paying the prices for increases in the price of milk, bread and eggs at the grocery store -- all largely due to the rise in corn prices driven in part by ethanol mandates.

This year's college graduates owe their success to many factors, from hectoring parents to cherished remedies for hangovers. But one of the most remarkable of the new graduates, Beatrice Biira, credits something utterly improbable: a goat.

"I am one of the luckiest girls in the world," Beatrice declared at her graduation party after earning her bachelor's degree from Connecticut College. Indeed, and it's appropriate that the goat that changed her life was named Luck.

Beatrice's story helps address two of the most commonly asked questions about foreign assistance: "Does aid work?" and "What can I do?"

The tale begins in the rolling hills of western Uganda, where Beatrice was born and raised. As a girl, she desperately yearned for an education, but it seemed hopeless: Her parents were peasants who couldn't afford to send her to school.

The years passed and Beatrice stayed home to help with the chores. She was on track to become one more illiterate African woman, another of the continent's squandered human resources.

It is a privilege to spend 90 minutes with the president of the United States. It is frustrating, though, when 90 percent of those minutes are declared off the record.

President Bush likes it that way, because he gets to speak "frankly" without worrying about how his remarks will be interpreted.

In the on-the-record part of Monday's interview with a small group of newspaper and magazine columnists, the president spoke of progress in Iraq: "I am pleased that the initial skepticism... is beginning to fade, to the point where (the) king of Jordan is going to Iraq; Prime Minister Maliki is going to Abu Dhabi; ambassadors are soon to be exchanged, hopefully."

The president thinks his commitment to stabilizing Iraq has boosted confidence in other countries: "The region is beginning to recognize, after a period of uncertainty, that a free Iraq is going to be important to their futures -- economic future and political future, because a free and successful Iraq will end up serving as a push-back to Iranian movements in the Middle East."

He is clearly pleased that funding for the war, which congressional Democrats repeatedly tried to halt, has been approved and will last six months into the new administration, which will allow the next president time to assess progress and make his own decisions. He is equally pleased the House has passed legislation protecting private phone companies who aid the government in eavesdropping on calls to or from suspected terrorists overseas.

Just in time for the July Fourth weekend, a conservative think tank delivered a controversial report questioning whether America's national identity is eroding under the pressure of population diversity and educational slackness.

The threat outlined by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in its report, "E Pluribus Unum," strikes me as a bit exaggerated. But at a time when Barack Obama and John McCain find themselves debating the "patriotism issue," having a coherent discussion of this matter -- and this short pamphlet is admirably written and well-researched -- is a useful contribution.

The takeoff point for the argument is an observation about the uniqueness of America that was made by Thomas Jefferson -- and by myriad other worthies in the centuries since then. They all have drawn attention to the fact that, unlike other countries, America's national identity rests "not on a common ethnicity, but on a set of ideas."

And so, the Bradley scholars say, "knowing what America stands for is not a genetic inheritance. It must be learned, both by the next generation and by those who come to this country. In this way, a nation founded on an idea is inherently fragile."

What disturbs the Bradley scholars is the evidence that our generation is failing to educate the next one on the essentials of the American experiment. "On the 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Civics Test," the report notes, "the majority of eighth-graders could not explain the purpose of the Declaration of Independence. Only 5 percent of seniors could accurately describe the way presidential power can be checked by Congress and the Supreme Court." The authors also decry the fact that most colleges and universities allow students to graduate without ever taking a comprehensive course in American history and government.

I have no idea when reverence fled these shores. That it did, however, seems obvious. What else can you conclude when the service of military men becomes a routine object of mockery and misinformation in the name of politics? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you John McCain: traitor.

In most quarters, of course, the senator is regarded as anything but. In those quarters, he is a war hero, having survived more than five years of beatings, solitary confinement and deprivation in a Vietnamese prison camp, even refusing an offer of early release because it meant leaving fellow prisoners behind.

But John Aravosis, who blogs on Americablog.com, has a different take. In a posting last week, he accused McCain of "disloyalty" because at one point, his captors tortured him into reading a propaganda statement.

I submit that Aravosis would read a statement denouncing his own mother if you beat him long enough. Most of us would. We would trust Mom to understand that we acted under duress, that we did what we needed to survive. We would trust that 40 years later, no one would raise this as proof of "disloyalty."

That Aravosis has done precisely that is bizarre, shameful and crude -- but not unprecedented.