Maybe, in the lone case of North Korea, what is repulsive and counterproductive in all other respects is just the ticket

These photos of Kim from recent weeks are pretty stunning, no? Shaking hands with Mike Pompeo. Setting foot in South Korea, sitting with South Korean president Moon and signing documents of intent to end the state of war.

Let's be careful here. It is such an abrupt about face for a dictator who was posing an existential threat to the Unites States, Japan and South Korea two months ago that we probably don't have enough facts to ascribe it unequivocally to one thing.

But surely Donald Trump's presence and style are a factor.

Veteran White House reporter Keith Koffler, writing at the NBC News website, seems to think so:

History — and in particular, the American voter — has a way of calling forth the right person to lead at the right time. Trump is a flawed man — self-indulgent, megalomaniacal, a bit paranoid, driven by self-interest and implacably domineering. But these “flaws” also make him a big character, and as he prepares to confront Kim and the other great tyrants of the age, Americans can feel assured that they have chosen the right man for the moment.

Not too long ago, the struggles among great nations were defined by ideology, as democracy and communism competed for allegiance around the world. During that age, a relatively non-ideological, nonintellectual man like Trump might have had trouble understanding the thinking animating Russian and Chinese communists, hampering his ability to confront them. But with realpolitik and raw ambition supreme, Trump is the man for this current age of crisis.

The president will have no problem understanding the motivations of Kim and the other tyrants he faces, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, newly anointed Chinese President-for-life Xi Jinpingand Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And Trump has the outsized strength of personality to combat them — unlike any of his rivals in the 2016 presidential election.

Republican voters were offered several “nice” alternatives who were raised to be respectful, yet they chose the guy who’d wipe his mouth off with your tie. Then the general public concurred.

A moment like this requires those of us holding the basic position that we do - that it's basically a bad thing that someone with this nature is the US president - to rise above the impulse to retreat into tribalism.

To the extent that the Very Stable Genius factor is driving unprecedented events in North Korea, we must be grateful that we could well be spared the dire scenario that looked disturbingly possible (likely?) quite recently.

No, LITD is not going Trumpist.

Koffler's line in the last paragraph from the above excerpt - "the guy who'd wipe his mouth off with your tie" - is not only great writing, but spot-on, and it's horrible that he rose to the top - unless it has staved off apocalypse.

Some kind of stance to be expressed along the lines of "I don't care if he accomplishes that. I hate him and that's all I want to talk about when the subject arises" is utterly useless.

Along with the Three Pillars and an expectation for the decorum in which the VSG is utterly lacking, conservatism is about living in the real world, and the facts seem to indicate that Kim's recent turnabout is due to some degree to having taken Trump's measure.

That's all it means. Trump may well - probably will - cause some messes of one kind or another with his personality and (lack of) character. But we will have at least been granted the breathing space to live to see what they are.

That's not insignificant.