The Marmot’s Hole

As one can imagine, the only thing the papers are really talking about is the impeachment vote. There’s a ton of information, analysis, rumor mongering etc. out there, and nobody has the time to go through it all. Anyway, allow me to make a couple of quick points:

• This is NOT a crisis. Yes, people are pissed off, and there are pretty big demonstrations against the impeachment, but contrary to some news reports (and I gather KBS is the major offender here, but don’t quote me on that), we have not witnessed a suspension of the constitutional system, nor has the nation descended into chaos. I was at yesterday’s big demonstration in Gwanghwamun (missed Ahn Chi-hwan, though), and everyone was on their best behavior. Basically, you had a lot of college kids and young families (with their children, which I generally dislike seeing at a political function of that nature) chanting, singing, holding candles, and waving signs, but an unruly crowd it wasn’t. Anyway, the constitution is functioning as it should — the impeachment vote was stupid and immoral, but unfortunately, it was legal (there is SOME disagreement about this, I should point out), and unless the GNP knows something that we don’t, the Constitutional Court will quickly throw out the impeachment and this whole mess will amount to little other than an act of political suicide on the part of the GNP and MDP. Meanwhile, the government is in pretty good hands with Prime Minister Goh “2ID” Kun, who’s the perfect man to run the show in a situation like this, as the Flying Yangban points out.

• Granted, public opinion is fickle, and people are still in shock about this whole affair, but as it stands now, the GNP and MDP have signed their own death warrants as far as the general election in April are concerned. Since the impeachment vote, support for Roh and the Uri Party has skyrocketed, whereas support for the GNP and MDP has crashed. Good conservative that I am, this does concern me, because I trust neither Roh, the Uri Party, or the people who back them. But then again, if I had voting rights, I’d be voting for Uri in April.

Now some other crap:

• GNP head Choe Byeong-nyeol — why is this man still employed? — is predicting a “battle to the death” in April. He’s right, of course, although it’s going to be his death, and I’m not sure if it’s going to be much of a battle. Anyway, here’s how he put it:

  The situation now is a life or death crisis in which the Roh Moo-hyun administration, wearing the mask of progressive forces, and radical forces masquerading as social organizations are conspiring to destroy the forces of moderate conservatism. [The 17th general election] will be a desperate war between pro-Roh and anti-Roh forces, regardless of whether we want it or not.
  …
  This country has split into two groups — those forces that make the nation chaotic and are trying to interfere with the normal decision making process of the Constitutional Court, and those forces of stability that worry about the nation and do their work quietly… Those people who criticize without grounds, they are forces of insecurity who disturb public order with candlelight demonstrations and ignore the citizens. We are the forces of stability.
  …
  On the surface, they call for a change in ruling forces, but the change they really scheme for is regime change in Korea… To the extent that the failure of the GNP would mean the death of healthy conservatism, we must pull together for the party and the future of the nation.

  Well, it’s nice to see the spokesman for “healthy conservatism” doing his best not to polarize the nation in this time of heightened emotions [sarcasm off]. Speaking as a conservative, the thing Korea needs most is a healthy, rational, future-oriented conservative party. And the only way that’s going to happen is if the GNP gets spanked. Screw spanked — obliterated.

  Oh, Choe also said his party made its decision because it wanted to spare the nation another four years of pain and confusion, and the most important thing now was for divided public opinion to come together. I can certainly sympathize with his first point, but unfortunately, his second point seems to be coming true — between 60 and 70 percent of the electorate think the impeachment was a bad idea, and Uri Party support ratings are ahead in every region of Korea outside of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province (and even there, only little over 30 percent said they supported the impeachment, even if they’d rather slit their wrists than vote for Uri in April). Nice move there, Choetler.

• Meanwhile, MDP head Chough Soon-hyung spent the day bitching at KBS and MBC, claiming that they were misreporting the situation and intentionally trying to cause social anarchy. Apparently, the GNP was planning to criticize the broadcast media as well, but suddenly changed their minds. No bother — the Chosun Ilbo did it for them.

  Chough is also fending off demands by some members of his own party to take responsibility for the impeachment mess and resign. Chough told them in no uncertain terms to kiss his ass, and made clear that he’ll deal with them when the time comes. He pointed out that in every organization, there are “basic morals” that need to be followed (What those morals are, in the case of the MDP, is anyone’s guess) — he even recited a line in a JFK book that points out that “The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who are neutral in times of ethical crisis” and pointed to all those rats who wanted to jump ship after the Bay of Pigs.

• That brings us to Uri. It pains me to say this, but they are being — by far — the most mature of the bunch. Of course, when you’re sitting as pretty as they are right now, there’s no need to do anything stupid. They’re apparently going to get North Jeolla Province governor Kang Hyeon-uk to defect from the MDP, and those MDP lawmakers who are calling for Chough’s scalp may be defecting soon, too. They also intend to make sure that everyone and their brother knows that Roh got screwed. At the same time, they’ve called off rallies in order to give citizens, foreign investors, and probably the North Koreans the impression that every thing’s stable. Roh, meanwhile, is probably enjoying his time off — he never seemed to like his job, anyway — and I’ve got to give credit when credit is due; for a guy with a distinct tendency to say a lot of stupid shit at the worst time, he has handled himself with a lot of class since the impeachment vote.

  I do have a suggestion for Uri, just in case any of their guys read this blog — make sure Nosamo and the college kids understand that they’re winning at this point, and if they continue with the politics of the street, it’s just going to piss people off. I need not remind you that Roh’s approval ratings were quite low before the vote, and they can go right back down in the shitter if you guys aren’t careful. It’s only been three days since the vote, and I can understand how the candle light demonstrations in Gwanghwamun might be politically useful for now. But if this crap keeps going on until the Constitutional Court decision or general election, it’s going to piss people off, and they’re going to start remembering why they really didn’t like Roh (after they elected him) in the first place. With the construction work going on in front of City Hall, downtown traffic is bad enough as it is. Don’t make it worse.

• The North Koreans have decided to honor us with their own commentary on the impeachment issue. The Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland called the impeachment a “political rebellion that thrust a knife into popular sentiment” and said, “We are watching the current situation in South Korea.” They also said, “This ‘impeachment’ disorder is something that, in the end, will not be simply an internal South Korean problem… The entity that caused this situation in South Korea is the United States.” (UPDATE: English Reuters report here)

  This was kind of interesting, not because it was unexpected on the part of the North Koreans, but because while I was at that demonstration last night, I saw two signs — held by college kids, of course — that read, in Korean, “U.S. — stop interfering in our internal politics,” and, “The U.S. is the puppet master behind the impeachment conspiracy.” Now, let me say this one more time, just to make it clear — I saw TWO signs, and that was in a demonstration of about 70,000 people. Hardly representative, if you get my drift. Now, I’m sure that among the Hanchongnyeon crowd, there are students busy making up conspiracy theories about how this is all a plot emanating from the U.S. Embassy (heck, they don’t need to make them up — they can just get them from the KCNA), and there are some within the Roh camp that aren’t above the use of anti-Americanism as an internal political ploy — the presidential election being a case in point. But from what I’ve been reading, and from what I saw last night, the only people blaming the U.S. for this impeachment are the North Koreans and two groups of college kids. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it until I see something that proves me wrong.

Note: Pic from OhMyNews