Remember when US President George W. Bush labelled Kim Jong-il a 'pygmy' and a 'tyrant'? Now the 'Dear Leader' is 'Dear Mr Chairman', in the newly courteous White House jargon. At least, that's how Mr Bush addressed the North Korean leader in an extraordinary letter appealing to him to reveal his entire nuclear weapons programme by the end of the year.
Mr Kim got the 'chairman' title as chief of North Korea's national defence commission. Mr Bush's decision to use that title rather than 'excellency', or a simple 'Mr', symbolises the climbdown from the hard line that he has pursued on North Korea since early in his presidency.
Whatever happened to 'CVID' - Mr Bush's earlier demand for 'complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement' of the entire North Korean nuclear programme? And what about Pyongyang's record on 'human rights', which the White House once held up as so deplorable as to justify refusal to talk directly to the North Koreans?
Is Mr Bush warming up for a summit with Mr Kim as the crowning achievement of the process of getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons? Mr Kim would love such a display of obeisance.
Mr Bush's letter was drafted when US envoy Christopher Hill was in Seoul last month on his way to Pyongyang. It uses the exact phrase that South Korean officials are mouthing: the fulfilment of North Korea's agreement to give up its nuclear weapons is 'at a critical juncture'.
Mr Bush reminded Mr Kim that the North agreed to list its entire nuclear inventory by the end of this year. The US still wants details on North Korea's programme for developing warheads with highly enriched uranium, separately (and secretly) from the plutonium at the Yongbyon complex. The US also needs to know about North Korean nuclear proliferation to other countries, notably Syria and Iran.
The rewards are clear, as Mr Hill has been saying for months. If only Mr Kim would come through as desired, the US will surely remove the North from its list of countries sponsoring terrorism, take away the embargo on most forms of trade, normalise diplomatic relations and agree to a peace treaty. That's a tempting bait.