It was probably a mistake to give too much attention to the North Korean’s releasing hostages. It is sort of like rewarding a man for not holding up a convenience store. Or, more precisely, thanking the man for finally returning the money he stole from his store robbery.
Rather than dispatch your Secretary of State to NK and then orchestrate a 2:00 am welcome home by POTUS to glorify the event, a more understated approach of just having the 3 men turned over at the DMZ might have been better.
For better or worse, the 3 freed men were always very small pawns in the much bigger game that is now about on the Korean Peninsula. Given the stakes, there was no need to give little Kim Jong un any positive recognition for behaving normally and not acting like a global pirate.
