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JOSH BOLTON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Well, obviously bringing a former president to North Korea is a lifeline of legitimacy for Kim Jong II's regime, and other rogue states are watching this very carefully, I think to our detriment.

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BAIER: Well, maybe so, but we expect in the next two to three hours former President Clinton's plane to leave North Korea with Laura Ling and Euna Lee, expected to leave with the former president on this scheduled flight.

The president meeting - former President Clinton meeting with Kim Jong II in North Korea today. Here's how the North Koreans describe it - "Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong II for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists for illegally entering the country.

The meetings had candid and in-depth discussions on the pending issues between North Korea and the U.S. in a sincere atmosphere and reached a consensus of views on seeking a negotiated settlement of them."

Well, maybe not. But let's bring in our panel about this move and about today's events, Steve Hayes, senior writer for the "Weekly Standard," Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, and the syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Charles, what about this? If, in fact, the two journalists get on the plane in the next couple of hours, success?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, it's the return of hostages in exchange for stuff. And we will learn about that stuff. It's clear that this was wired in advance.

There probably was an apology. After of all, the secretary of state, the president's wife, had said openly, as we say earlier, that we were sorry about the incident, and we were asking for amnesty, which was implying the legitimacy of the arrest and the trial. So we have already issued an apology.

Secondly, it is obvious that he was an envoy of the Obama administration despite our denials. This is the one time in history in which the official news station of the North Koreans told the truth, but it does happen once every 50 years. But thirdly, there was obviously a quid pro quo. The first of it we saw because we had Kim Jong II, who has had a stroke, he's been wobbly and unsteady, and you can understand in a dictatorship like his how that begins the rumors of succession. So by standing up in the photos that we just saw, obviously engaged with Clinton, he looks like he is back in charge. That helps him personally.

Secondly, by getting a very high level envoy, you can't get higher level than a former president of the United States, it does help the North Koreans in their legitimacy, and it's a demonstration of direct negotiations with the United States, which is what Pyongyang has always demanded. So it's getting it. It got a lot.

And it probably has gotten stuff that we haven't even heard about and we may never hear about, aid in food and oil. All of that stuff will happen quietly in the future.

But it was a hostage ransom. No question at all.

BAIER: Mara, the White House insisted that the former president was not carrying a message for President Obama, despite what the North Koreans said in their release, that, in fact, he was carrying a message from President Obama.

But there is no one in Washington who believes that this was not coordinated with the National Security Council and the secretary of state, his wife.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: It would be unthinkable that you would send Bill Clinton over there without knowing he would come back with the women. That would have been just a disaster of epic proportions.

However, I think it's still not clear exactly what they got other than the ability to write that statement and to sit down with Bill Clinton and to get the kind of legitimacy that just the visit itself conveys. Now we don't know what else they're going to get.

One thing that the U.S. might have gotten out of this, they got a lot of information. Somebody, Bill Clinton, has actually sat down with Kim Jong II and probably can provide a lot of information about how he seemed, his health, his physical situation.

I think that, you know, relations between North Korea and the United States are at an impasse. I can't imagine that this is going to be the beginning of direct one-on-one talks.

I want to wait and see exactly what transpired between them.

BAIER: We should point out this came a couple of weeks after North Korea called Secretary of State Clinton a "schoolgirl and a pensioner in a market."

LIASSON: We know she has a thick skin.

KRAUTHAMMER: It is hard to be a schoolgirl and pensioner at the same time. Maybe in that part of the world it occurs but I have never seen it here.

BAIER: Mixed message - Steve?

STEVE HAYES, SENIOR WRITER, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": I think we have to pause and at least note the irony that the North Korean statement was probably more accurate than the White House statement.

The White House, Robert Gibbs put out a statement this morning saying that President Clinton was there on a solely private mission. That is false. I think we can say that is not true, and we will likely learn the details of just how coordinated this was in advance.

But I think Charles is half right. This was definitely a quid pro quo, but I'm not sure that we will learn what else the North Koreans have gotten. In my view, they have gotten everything he wanted to get. Remember, during the latter two years of the Bush administration, all they wanted, what they wanted most was bilateral face-to-face meetings. If they could do it with a high profile official, they would do it with a high-profile official. They got those, but with lower level officials and sort of in hush-hush meeting around the world with the Bush administration. This is legitimacy. John Bolton is right. This is a lifeline to a regime that is a terrorist regime that has proliferated nuclear technology to a terror sponsoring state in Syria, that brutalizes its own people. And there Bill Clinton is, in effect, begging to get these journalists back.

BAIER: There is a report that the journalists were told to contact their families and tell them "Give us former President Clinton and we'll let you go." We'll see if that turns out to be true. Charles, what about the negotiating with terrorists or terrorist-supporting states?

KRAUTHAMMER: It's always humiliating, but in the end, you have to do it. And it's been done by the Reagan administration, by the Bush administration, father and son, and Clinton. But it's not a triumph on our part by any means. We have had hostages in Iran, and we quietly released a bunch of killers, Iranians who were caught in Iraq, and we released them months later. And again, we want to hide what the exchange is about. That's why I suspect we won't learn about the further ransom until a lot later.

BAIER: And Iran, Mara, do you think they are looking at this with three Americans just who have crossing the border from Iraq, they might be charges of spying, according to Iran, do you think they are pushing for former President Clinton, too?

LIASSON: I don't think that's what they want. North Korea is a strange and inscrutable country, and maybe what they really wanted, as Steve suggests, is that kind of visit.

I think Iran is a lot more complex. There are a lot more pressure points with Iran. Iran's government is much more unstable and in much more turmoil there. I don't think that they would be satisfied with just a visit from Bill Clinton.