Most people seemed to have missed the point of North Korea’s kidnapping, trying, and sentencing-to-twelve-years-in-a-labor-camp of two young female journalists: it is totally and entirely to gain leverage over Washington with a brand new Administration in place.

Kim Jong Il learned from his father, Kim Il Song, who pioneered the technique, that the quickest way to get DC to pay attention to you is to hold Americans as prisoners. Why? Because we care!

And if the two are women—and journalists—well, that is just to good to pass up!

Look how much coverage this story is receiving. Plus, Al Gore is involved - and Pyongyang probably feels the Former Vice President can get into the Obama Oval Office and cut a deal.

What does this rogue regime want?

Duh. Money—and lots of it. In cash. In bags and suitcases.

Plus an admission of guilt by the two journalists—accused of spying—and who clearly were NOT spying. But the truth and reality are irrelevant when dealing with this crazed North Korean leadership.

Just two weeks ago we saw them launch a series of rockets—all aimed at attracting attention to themselves at a time when President Obama was focusing on Iran and the Muslim World. Kim Jong Il—like the petulant, spoiled child he has always been—is saying, “Hey, world, pay attention to me!!!

And, thanks to the news media aspect of this story, the White House has been forced to pay attention to it. Just yesterday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about it at a State Department public event. And when that happens, it forces an issue onto the political radar screen.

This story is almost identical to the Iranian-American woman tried and held recently in Iran. She was just released—whether for under-the-table money or concessions we will never know. Or perhaps it was Tehran trying to keep lines open with the new Obama Administration while talks are ongoing about their nuclear programs.

But that woman was seized for a reason—and released for a reason. And nothing any government official on either side says publicly is the truth.

The same for these two unfortunate female journalists - who may have not even been in North Korea at allwhen thy were kidnapped.

Pyongyang has regularly “stolen” people from South Korea, Japan—and, of course, in the most famous incident of them all, they kidnapped the crew of the USS Pueblo in early 1968 and held them in brutal conditions for ten months.

In the end, they forced President Johnson to admit that we violated their territorial waters (we didn’t)—and we also (secretly) paid $50million in cash. That has never been admitted to by any US Government official.

This present stand-off will result in a very similar solution. Figure it will happen within a month or so. There may be a trip—perhaps by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson who has had past success with that regime.

But rest assured: those two women will be home this summer.

And Uncle Sam is going to pay—big time—and off the books for their release.