There's a danger in being under the influence of swagger. Sometimes you draw the wrong conclusions. A line drawn in the sand is a statement, a clear delineation of what will and will can not be allowed. Bush attempted such a line with North Korea; "They will not be rewarded for bad behavior." One can argue about the wisdom of Bush drawing that clear line, but draw it he did. North Korean behavior falling on this side of the line opens the door to positive incentives, behavior on that side brings negative consequences to North Korea.
That is Bush's line in the sand, but he drew it at the low tide mark, the one place on a beech where it is certain that a line in the sand will get washed away. Because North Korea seeks direct talks with the United States, Bush decided that allowing North Korea to talk directly with the U.S. would constitute "a reward", and that crosses Bush' line. No rewards without improved behavior first from North Korea. So now the United States can't talk directly with North Korea about issues of war and peace that deeply effect both our nations, since direct negotiation itself is defined as a reward.
Doesn't matter what the U.S. intends to say to North Korea when and if we ever sit down to talk with them directly. Bush could instruct his envoy there to propose "Give us the head of your leader on a spike within 48 hours or get bombed into the stone age" but the right to be told that directly by the United States is now defined as "a reward" to North Korea. This is where Bush drew his line in the sand. The right to talk to the United States is an honor and a reward suitable only for those regimes that cooperate with our expectations of them and pose no threat to us. Nice line if it works, but what if it doesn't? Incoming tides have a way of washing away lines that are arrogantly drawn in the sand. Watch Bush hold his line as the storm surge breaks on shore. It should be interesting, and dangerous.
That wasn't the line drawn by Ronald Reagan, who Republicans today are so proud to credit with winning the Cold war. That wasn't the line drawn by Bush the Elder, or Ford the kind, or by Nixon or Eisenhower either. The Soviet Union had hundreds of nuclear warhead tipped missiles pointed at American cities, and we talked with them with no preconditions. The Soviet Union blew up H Bombs in the atmosphere, and we talked with them with no preconditions. Once upon a time talking with one's enemy wasn't defined as rewarding one's enemy. It was defined as diplomacy.