Kevin of IA critiques both Josh of TPM and yours truly in his latest post — it’s a long one but a goodie. Here’s just a sample:
How is it possible that both are wrong? Because neither appears to be recognizing the middle ground. That middle ground of reality (as I see it at least) is that America and Bush were in fact an issue in this Korean election. They were not a salient, defining, or dominant issue as Marshall believes, but they were also not a completely non-existant issue as the Marmot seems to be implying. They were somewhere in between.
The best analogy I believe, is that America and Bush were the elephant in the corner that no one (read: Korean media and candidates) wanted to acknowledge or talk about, but that everyone knew was there and everyone knew was an influence. Marshall believes the elephant was large, front and center, in part because it fits his theory of anti-Bush dominoes falling all over the world. Marmot believes that there was no elephant in the room to speak of, which I think he put forward specifically to refute Marshall. Both are wrong.
Great post. I stand by my original argument, though — I think both the left and right have been trying to see Thursday’s election results through the prism of anti-Bushism or anti-Americanism. Understandable, I guess, given that no one has forgotten how Roh got elected in 2002 and the fact that the American media tends to overly focus on the U.S.-R.O.K. relationship. I just don’t see how the “American question” was a factor in these election, however. I wish it had been, because the “American question” is guaranteed to be a factor after ‘em.
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The question shouldn’t be ‘Bush-ism - Yes or No? It should be ‘Actively fight for American Interests (aka democracy, etc), or Not?’
Josh has a very transparent, one-size-fits-all agenda and will tailor all info to fit that. I was surprised and relieved at how little the U.S. was discussed during the campaign, which focused on impeachment emotions and the make-up of parliament rather than on “issues” as understood elsewhere.
Uri Party newcomers are self-styled progressives (see weekend KBS identity poll), which tends to mean they are 1) nativists and 2) hard-wired to be anti-U.S. — even while taking U.S. support for granted. Heavy and hard thinking on world affairs is beyond their competence — and not why they were nominated or elected.
Iraq will be the first test and the party is leaning toward scrapping the 3,000 troop deployment. This can be portrayed by pundits as anti-Bush, with some legtimacy, but Uri’s behaviour can also be seen as a product of their basic isolationism. As wise a gesture as I thought the Roh administration’s offer to contribute troops was, I doubt that South Korean society or its media are mature enough to handle casualties. If I am right, we are better off if South Korea stays home.
I would assume that anti-American, anti-Bush was almost the default position of many candidates from several parties. Even if there MIGHT be a silent majority who wants the alliance to prosper, noone will stick their necks out and state that in a campaign. I say this recalling that during the end-2002 anti-U.S. demos, it was the conservative Lee Hoi-chang who went as far as signing the anti-U.S. altar guest book. (Roh didn’t need to prove his loyalties with that crowd). It was only weeks after the flag rippers and burners of Sejongno become the emblematic South Korean image on CNN and BBC did conservatives stage pro-U.S. rallies. I’m relieved Uncle Sam wasn’t dragged into the race, but I’m sure expedience and opportunism will make U.S. ties an issue for Uri in due course.
Prediction: The Uri party members will soon start infighting and will bust up into a bunch of splinter groups. Within a few years, the party will be irrelevant.
A “fart” huh? Perhaps you should call it the odor of a decaying corpse — literally (I’m not making an analogy to the current state of the US-ROK alliance).
Let’s see, there’s still several thousand missing Americans from the Korean war, whose corpses are still in the peninsula somewhere. Most of them are probably in unmarked graves up near the Yalu, where the American columns were shattered by the Chinese counterattack after Thanksgiving 1950. I suppose you could say they died for a “unified” Korea — which would make it wonderfully ironic for their smell to be a metaphor symbolizing the obnoxious American presence to young Koreans.
But wait, North Korea is such a charnel house currently. Nobody could pick up the faint background smell of old American corpses — so I suppose that metaphor, like the one about the elephant, doesn’t work either. I guess we’re back to Americans being a “fart”.
Well, the only thing to do with a “fart” is to open the door and clear out the room. The only thing this old “fart” would regret is leaving these long-forgotten dead behind.
Maybe once we’re gone the Norks will relax enough to let us go in with a comprehensive search and “buy” them back. I’d consider that money well spent (unlike previous bribes to the North Korean Barbary pirates).
Syrian WMD materials in attempted attack in Jordan? Or were they Iraqi materials smuggled to Syria? You decide:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3635381.stm
And why isn’t this something ABC, CNN, Fox, or NBC were talking about? Seems like a pretty big story to me!!
PING:
TITLE: Ghosts in the South Korean Electoral Psyche
BLOG NAME: Kamelian X-Rays
The Marmot and Kevin at IA are having a very epistemological debate about the April 15 General Assembly elections in South Korea. Between JMM, Marmot, and Kevin, I have to agree with Kevin, although Marmot can make the second-strongest
PING:
TITLE: Ghosts in the South Korean Electoral Psyche
BLOG NAME: Kamelian X-Rays
The Marmot and Kevin at IA are having a very epistemological debate about the April 15 General Assembly elections in South Korea. Between JMM, Marmot, and Kevin, I have to agree with Kevin, although Marmot can make the second-strongest