Let the Big Dog Run

By MAUREEN DOWD
NYT

WASHINGTON

When I look at the incorrigible Kim Jong-il, an insult hurled by the incomparable Billy Wilder comes to mind.

Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, was having dinner with Wilder years ago when the subject of Swifty Lazar, the very famous and very short agent, came up.

Putting down his knife and fork, Wilder announced: “That man should go hang himself from a bonsai tree.”

The diminutive North Korean leader has been known to use lifts in his shoes. This time, he demanded some special stature in the form of a diplomatic cameo by our top diplomat’s husband.

There were no bonsais in view, unfortunately. But the two leaders posed, stiff as tree trunks, in front of a mural of waves.

(More here.)