Refreshing candor?

LA Times:

Reporting from Washington -- For years as North Korea defied the West with its nuclear program, U.S. officials considered international negotiations their best chance, if not their only hope, for dealing with the renegade regime.

So it came as a jolt when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed to say recently that the Obama administration was throwing in the towel on the talks. The idea that North Korea would take part, she said, was "implausible, if not impossible."

It was just one more burst of candor bolstering Clinton's reputation as the most outspoken among recent chief U.S. diplomats. In other remarks over the last month, she has compared China unfavorably to Iran, and said the U.S.-backed government in Pakistan was "abdicating" to the Taliban.

Critics contend that in diplomacy, it is sometimes better for disagreeable truths to remain unspoken. But admirers call Clinton's frankness refreshing.

...

I think it is really interesting when the double standard for candor and frankness rears its head so soon after both Democrats and the media were critical of President Bush for the same candor and frankness they now find "refreshing."