The Nelson Report or The Onion ?

Steve Clemons, who certainly seems to be a extraordinarily honest and scrupulous but who did serve as "Executive Director of the Nixon Center in Washington" appears to have played a dirty trick on the Bush administration passing off something which could only have been published in The Onion as part of a Nelson Report. (conveniently available only to subscribers).

According to Clemons Nelson has access to an internal memo in which Bush was advised to argue among other things that Kim Jong Il is "a leader who 'threatens and brags'. That last part will subtly remind Asia of the big differences between Pyongyang and Washington,"

This must be a joke. The aid (named Green) could only have written that as an unsubltle hint that he was being forced to give advice that he considered unsound.

In fact, the reference to the Nelson Report has vanished from the Washington Note.

Ah I see in comments (from Nelson himself)

SINCERE apologies for our ill-advised attempt at satire and irony in the opening paragraph of Friday’s Nelson Report on the Korea situation. The remainder of the Report was deadly serious. We had intended that the satire would be clear, due to the very outrageousness of the idea that a serious professional such as the NSC’s Mike Green would write talking points containing the insulting language used against N. Korea’s Kim Jong-il, in President Bush’s Thursday evening press conference.

An insider like Nelson should understand that, when it comes to the Bush administration, smart experts like Steve Clemons can easily mistake satire for reality.