Roughly 36 hours ago, news broke of a possible breakthrough in the multilateral nuclear disarmament regarding North Korea. Bloggers on the left and right quickly went to their computers to either praise President Bush or offer cautious optimism. It turns out that it might have been better to wait until the details of the early stages agreement were divulged to the public, because as the AP's Jae-Soon Chang reports, the deal might be more elusive than previously believed.

North Korea insisted Tuesday it won't dismantle its nuclear weapons program until the U.S. gives it civilian nuclear reactors, casting doubt on a disarmament agreement reached a day earlier during international talks.

Washington reiterated its rejection of the reactor demand and joined China in urging North Korea to stick to the agreement announced Monday in which it pledged to abandon all its nuclear programs in exchange for economic aid and security assurances.

North Korea's new demands underlined its unpredictable nature and deflated some optimism from the Beijing agreement, the first since negotiations began in August 2003 among the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

Perhaps this can serve as a reminder to all of us in the blogosphere that haste is not always a virtue.