When Condoleezza Rice took over as secretary of state, the (wishful) thinking was that the Bush administration would finally get into the business of diplomacy. Ms. Rice can be as bullying and ad hominem as her boss, but she’s also an achiever and trying her hand at persuasion was probably the only hope for salvaging the administration’s failed foreign policies and her reputation.

Two and a half years later we’re pleased to note a preliminary success for the new era: North Korea’s decision to shut down its plutonium-producing nuclear reactor in exchange for economic and eventual diplomatic payoffs. Ms. Rice managed to hold back the spoilers in the vice president’s office long enough for her negotiator, Christopher Hill, to do the deal the old-fashioned way: countless hours of negotiations and a willingness to compromise with a leader President Bush once famously said he “loathed.”

Unfortunately, in most every other area ad hominem and loathing still dominate. And there is still a perplexing refusal to do the tedious but absolutely essential diplomatic prep work.

Consider Mr. Bush’s announcement last week that Ms. Rice will preside over a Middle East peace meeting this fall. That might seem a breakthrough for a White House that started out claiming that too much diplomacy  by Bill Clinton  unleashed the second Palestinian uprising. And we’re being told that Ms. Rice considers an Israeli-Palestinian peace her last, best chance for a legacy. Still, there’s no sign that either she or Mr. Bush has grasped the lesson of Mr. Hill’s North Korea breakthrough.