Proof that if you frame something with a strong enough Anti-Bush Administration tag, you can get the LAT to print almost anything - no matter how vile the subject -

This North Korean, an affable man in his late 50s who spent much of his career as a diplomat in Europe, has been assigned to help his communist country attract foreign investment.

...He said better relations with the United States were key to turning around his nation's economy, which has nearly ground to a halt over the last decade amid famine, the collapse of industry and severe electricity shortages. "For basic life, we can live without America, but we can live better with" it, he said.

...He also said that U.S. criticism of North Korea's record on human rights was unfair and hypocritical. In its annual human rights report on Monday, the State Department characterized North Korea's behavior as "extremely poor." It said 150,000 to 200,000 people were being held in detention camps for political reasons and that there continued to be reports of extrajudicial killings.

"Is there any country where there is a 100% guarantee of human rights? Certainly not the United States," the businessman said. "There is a question of what is a political prisoner. Maybe these people are not political prisoners but social agitators."

...he faulted the United States for the collapse of a 1994 pact under which North Korea was supposed to get energy assistance in return for freezing its nuclear program. The agreement fell apart after Washington accused North Korea in 2002 of cheating on the deal, and the U.S. and its allies suspended deliveries of fuel oil.

...If we sort out the problems with America, everything else will fall into place. The problems with Japan can easily be sorted out," he said.

Now look, I'm more than ready to accept that getting an alternate perspective on things is important and useful.   And this anonymous businessman's comments really do have a place in our understanding of N. Korea.   What bugs me is how eagerly the LAT seems to reprint every word / accusation from this slimeball's mouth with NONE of the snide backtracking they reserve for Bush et. al.  

The 1994 agreement fell apart, no doubt, but where's the counter quote from an American analyst who'll note that it wasn't the 2002 accusations of cheating that made it fall apart but rather the, uh, 1995 resumption of nuke weapons development?