Then, in a more general way, I don’t think it hurts to expose even the stereotypical frog-in-the-well Korean “lefty” to a living, breathing, hopefully thinking American, since there’s such a cartoon view of the U.S. in some quarters here.

Here are the reasons (as stated in a comment at the Hole):1. It shows that the USA rep. in Korea is not afraid to face anyone, any where, any time. That adds to his credibility and gives a little moral

1. It shows that the USA rep. in Korea is not afraid to face anyone, any where, any time. That adds to his credibility and gives a little moral support to those in Korea who support the alliance.

2. By having him on ‘their’ show and listening to him unfiltered, it forces the lefties to think of him (and the USA) as something other than the caricature that they mentally draw of us in their little echo chambers.

3. If he is prevented from talking, the lefties look like jerks to the general pubic for silencing a different view. If he is not prevented from talking, the lefties either alienate moderate Koreas by talking like jerks or cause dissention in their ranks by talking like reasonable human beings.

I like Vershbow more and more almost every day.

It might make some sense to me to go SBS or KBS or MBC — go on some mainstream TV news show or something like whatever it was that broke the Hwang scandal (pc notebook?) or whatever — and have on as part of the questioning panel Voice of People and Ohmynews and more…

There might have some proactive hope of sitting down with representatives from these groups in a forum like on a KBS that can also pull in a mainstream audience as well as zealot followers of those guys.

But, it makes no sense to me to keep sending top US representatives to go into the forums set up by the likes of Voice or even Ohmynews to face them on their own turf.

It just sets the bar for potentual effective movement way to high.

Let me put it this way — the Voice people could belch, fart, pick their nose and wipe it on their shirt, then use the finger to rub up and down on their pressed lips while they go “pweeeppppppppweeppppppwppppppeeeewwwppppp”

—and the US rep could give the most stunning, erudite responses to even the most moranic or difficult of questions…

and the bulk of the listeners via a Voice or similar format are going to get angry at the US and think Voice did a bang up job.

I even believe if taken into a MBC type forum, even some of the frequent listerners to a Voice message would have more willingness to listen to what the US rep has to say.

What I mean is, I think going into a forum set up by these people completely on their own turf will give them such a sense of accomplishment and sophistication and credibility, they will have already heard everything they want to hear before the first word is spoken.

I guess I might even be saying the same thing if Voice of People and the like were taken into the Embassy and sat down in a staff room and were given the chance to have an “open and frank debate” with the US reps, though I do believe the chance the US people would be more open minded than the likes of the Voice and their most dedicated listerners is much higher.

As it is, we have seen these US reps go to the forums set up by these groups a few times now, and what has it accomplished?

At best, it seems to me, it has accomplished not throwing fuel on any fires.

But, there in is the problem as well.

The bar is set so high