This morning’s headline goes to Amy Klobuchar, who successfully boxed rival candidate, Mark Kennedy roundly about the head and shoulders. And boy, did he ever ask for it.

First, as our wee interlocutor, little Russ, intoned, the serious matter of North Korea, which was discussed with only one guest, John Bolton, our as yet unconfirmed ambassador to the UN.

Try as he might, Russert simply couldn’t get Bolton to deal with the reality of how the world has changed strategically as a result of North Korea’s test of a nuclear device, even if a tiny one, even if it was something of a dud. The reason Russert couldn’t was largely because of his own inability, along with the rest of the SCLM, to get straight the recent history of our relationship with North Korea, stretching back to the first Bush administration. These journalistic jugheads can’t even get their first draft of history right.

Although for the most part the SCLM isn’t ready to hop aboard the Bush blame train this time, they appear to be too scared to present to the American electorate the clear difference in results between the policy of this Bush and that of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, under whom North Korean steps to refine plutonium from spent fuel rods that started under the first Bush were reversed, plutonium production was stopped in its tracks, with no possibility of cheating because both the means for refining more plutonium and the plutonium refined under Bush One’s watch were locked away, sealed, and under constant inspection both by on-site cameras and by UN inspectors, resulting in no advances made toward becoming a nuclear power on Clinton’s watch.

Bolton, like Condi, wants to view the Bush record in dealing with North Korea in a long-view context which stretches back to 1945 and the “supposedly” temporary partitioning of the Korean peninsula,” which is meant to becloud the clear fact that this administration has watched since 2003, and essentially did next to nothing, while North Korea proceeded to tear off the seals, reopen it’s facility for refining plutonium from spent fuel rods, all out in the open, as it asserted with equal openness that its intention was to proceed to make nuclear bombs.

Yes, the idea of employing multilateral diplomacy is a fine one, but also a limited one, and led by this Bush contingent, one that offered neither carrots nor sticks, except for the occasional stamping of the presidential foot as he reiterated that he would not tolerate North Korea becoming a nuclear power. Well, it may not yet be a power, but with that underground test, it has joined the nuclear club. On Bush’s watch.

None of this was Russert able to use to challenge Bolton. What few challenges he was able to pull out were the usual Meet The Press staples; on this date you said this; on this date the President said this; what do you have to say now. A perfect setup for Bolton’s smooth brand of verbose bullshit.

To hear Bolton tell it, every step taken by the Bush administration has been exactly as planned, and represents a triumph of diplomacy, leading inexorably to the imposition of just voted-upon UN sanctions, just as planned.

At no point was Russert able to articlate the fairly easy to understand fact that when Bush took office in January of 2001, North Korea was not a nuclear power, nor anywhere near to becoming one, and as a direct result of actions taken by this administration to toss aside the Agreed Framework, while replacing it with nothing, North Korea is now a nation in possession of enough plutonium for at least 13 nuclear weapons, and may, indeed, have some of those already. After all, once Bolton had stated that North Korea has wanted nuclear weapons for twenty years, what more was there for Timmy to say.

I should note that Bolton told a few lies along the way to his reassuring “we are in command of the universe” narrative; for instance, North Korea only rejected the Agreed Framework AFTER it was junked by President Bush, in what appeared to be a fit of irritation with Kim Jong Ill’s shortness. Bolton also insisted that it was Kim and the North Koreans who rejected the recent offer of a Secretary level face to face with Condi Rice, when, in fact, it was the usual internal disagreements within the Bush administration, between the Cheney hawks who want to bring down Kim’s regime, and the State department contingent, including Condi, who were ready to try some form of bilateralism, that undermined the offer. I know, Bush is the decider, but he apparently forgot to decide on this one.

We can only hope that voters are finally tired of this administration’s embarrassing penchant for blaming everyone but themselves for what happens on their watch; like the President, like the Vice-President, like Condi, and John Bolton, and every damn Republican I can think of, the buck always stops over there, or over there, or over there, or over there, but never where are located those who claim to be in charge of our national destiny.

And now to the important stuff; the potential changing of the Republican guard.

Paired in real time and space, sitting next to one another were Mark Kennedy, the Republican congressman who is running for the open Senate seat from Minnesota, and Amy Klobuchar, his Democratic opponent, who is currently the DA for Minneapolis.

Here’s what happened; Kennedy was on the personal attack against Klobuchar the entire time, leaving Kobouchar free to talk about issues, and except for her first answer, which was about North Korea, Klobuchar took Kennedy down more than best of three falls standard in most wrestling matches.

There was more than a hint of desperation about Kennedy; not surprisingly, with poll numbers that show Klobuchar ahead by 21 points, and her exposure to a national audience should only help in keeping that lead.

Her weakness on North Korea was a reluctance to be critical of the Bush administration’s sorry record, and a failure to point out, when Russert tried to fudge the actual record and show both Clinton and Bush saying that they will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea, what Russert didn’t, that Clinton made good on his vow to keep North Korea out of the nuclear club, Bush didn’t.

Other than that, Klobuchar klobbered Kennedy, not only fielding with aplomb, his spit balls, like the accusation that she was against providing body armor for our troops in Iraq, but managing as well, despite Russert’s inability to keep Kennedy from monopolizing more than his fair share of the time allotted, to point out the kind of desperate personal attacks which Kennedy returned to again and again.

On Iraq, Kennedy went for the cut and run card, but what was most clearly dramatized was Kennedy’s inability to say that either he or Bush were wrong about any aspect of Bush’s policies in Iraq. Klobuchar was clear that what she is talking about is a change from a failed policy there, in the face of an actual civil war which can only be solved by diplomatic and political means.

Klobuchar’s strongest moment came when handling Kennedy’s accusations that she was soft on security because she had questioned Bush’s NSA program, and was critical of the detainee act recently passed by congress.

Not retreating from either position, Klobuchar made clear that rejecting that bill was about being strong on national security, and that the bill’s likely unconstitutionality was the result of a politically motivated rush to pass a bill so radical it will probably come undone, solely for the purpose of being able to attack Democrats for voting against it.

But let Amy Klobucher speak for herself; be aware that this is my own transcription of what I thought was her strongest moment, luckily, also, the last thing she said:

Tim, this is why we’re in the mess we’re in in Iraq, because of this political gamemanship. Congressman Kennedy didn’t answer my question, and instead proceeded to ask many questions. And I will tell you a few of these answers.

I am committed to this war against terror. I am someone who puts people in jail for a living. I am tough on security. And I believe that the people on the front line have to have the tools to wire-tap, they have to have the tools to do the surveillance that we need. I supported the Patriot Act, I did support some of the changes that were later made to the Patriot Act with library books, library records and things like that. I also believe that we should have gotten that detainee bill right, something like what was originally passed out at the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Supreme Court gave this Congress a duty, and said “Get this right.” Instead, they passed a very broad bill that I don’t believe will meet constitutional muster. I didn’t have to take this position, but I feel it’s the best position because they were putting their short-term political gain in front of the bigger issue of winning the war against terror so that they could go on Sunday morning talk shows like this one and claim that their opponents were weak on security and weak on terror. I think Democrats should welcome this debate on security. And we’re having it in our state, and the people are listening.

That’s exactly what all Democrats should be saying, and after hearing and watching Ms. Klobuchar, I feel a whole lot better about those upcoming elections.

Damn, don’t you all wish they were next week; so much is at stake, and the suspense is killing, isn’t it?