Yonhap is reporting that former Seoul mayor Lee Myung-bak has virtually secured the GNP presidential nomination.
The official announcement will be made at 4:30. I’ll wait until the announcement until I believe anything.
UPDATE: It’s official — Lee Myung-bak has secured the GNP nomination with 81,084 votes. Park Geun-hye came in second with 78,632 votes. More importantly, Park has acknowledged her defeat and said she’ll be a team player.
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I remember seeing many candidates campaigning illegally.
Some examples include:
Covering a whole multi-storey building with a banner, featuring a picture of themselves.
Bongo trucks parked illegally with huge posters.
Bongos with speakers blaring (disturbing the peace).
All the candidates do this, they are all breaking laws, have no respect for laws, and havn’t even been elected yet!!
Vote for me I’m honest, er I mean the least dishonest candidate.
Park Geun-hye being on board is big news, especially considering how close the finally tally was. She is still relatively young and can make another run in 2012. Her campaigning for Lee now would earn her some favors for the future.
I saw a poll that said only half of her supporters would back Lee. That still should put Lee at about 50% when the next polls come out. With active support from Park, he might even be able to push that up to 60% before attacks from Roh and the fight for the Uri II nomination starts pushing it down.
Park Geun-hye’s hot.
I’m not sure about “hot”, but she does look infinitely better than Lee Myung-Bak.
I hope he has given up on that stupid canal of his.
I am shocked that Park so easily accepted the defeat, considering how viciously (and dirtily) she has been fighting to exploit Lee’s personal flaws and family problems, bringing up all kinds of mudslinging imaginable from his property to military service.
So kudos to Park, who has once again proven her loyalty to the party. She revitalized the hugely unpopular post-impeachment GNP into the giant political party that GNP is right now, and if she stays committed that way then I’m sure she will have a good shot at the next election.
Thank goodness for Park not going all Kim Dae Jung on us and splitting the vote.
We’ll see. The primary results were a little too close for comfort, and I’ve got to believe Park is thinking to herself that she could overtake Lee between now and December. I don’t think she can, but that doesn’t mean she’s not thinking it.
Is the voter turnout considered good for a primary? It seems so low.
@Robert: the Korean election law prevents Park from running in any circumstance (meaning she can’t do what Lee In-Jae did), unless Lee becomes unable to run due to causes such as, er, death.
Unless Roh pushes his constitutional reform forward (a virtual impossibility) Park has only five years to wait for her turn. She has already been commended tremendously for promptly accepting her defeat, so I’d like to think she is wise enough not to do something foolish.
@ecorn: the voter turnout was 70.8%, a very good figure IMO.
I agree with Robert Koehler. It is too early to say if Park will stay as a team player.
I agree that her wisdom would dictate that supporting Lee this time around could assure an even stronger try for the presidency in five years.
The problem is that her many, many hangers-on may not have the patience — and/or wisdom — of their candidate.
Given that political platforms hardly exist, Korean national politics is basically a mass exercise — sort of like a super scrum on steroids — to get a chance at the pig trough for five years. And a lot of people are not willing or able to hold back for half a decade.
Yet, if the GNP can effectively regroup and be cohesive through December, then Korea will have achieved another political first by demonstrating that party-based democracy is coming of age.
Otherwise, its the same-old, same-old counterproductive nonsense. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Like Tom, I’m also hoping that this is one further indication that Korean politics is stabilizing into a system of 2~4 reasonably consistent parties representing modern ideological and policy differences. They need that so much. IF they can do it…
I’m all for Lee Myung-bak. His tenure as mayor of Seoul has shown us that although he’s probably a crook, cares not a whit for democratic process, and is generally completely crass, Lee Myung-bak’s instincts are more or less on target with what will actually improve the lives of all Koreans (his own circle more than the others, of course).
It’s too bad that this is the best the Korean electorate can get, but you get the President you deserve. After all, there were a number of Americans chanting that John Kerry — John Kerry! — was “The Real Deal”.
Today on my Korea Law Blog I write about housing prices, and recommend a massive building campaign. Leave it to the Bulldozer, I say.
# 13, Good Post.
Brendon wrote:
“It’s too bad that this is the best the Korean electorate can get, but you get the President you deserve. After all, there were a number of Americans chanting that John Kerry — John Kerry! — was “The Real Deal”.”
This is funny, Brendon, but not in the way you intended.
Accomplishments of President Cheney & Mr. Bush:
- an unprecedented fiscal deficit & national debt which prompted one federal reserve bank governor (a Republican at that!) to call the financial future of America “a deep well of sorrow”
- loss of goodwill & reputation built up over more than a century. Meaning?: Among allies, don’t expect the Canadians, Brits, Australians, etc. to be gladly joining your future adventures as loyally as they did before. Among others, a move from dislike to visceral hatred.
- no BinLadin. No al-Zawahiri (#2).
- national discourse at a level of vitriol and hatred not seen since the pre-Civil period. Bush the divider, not uniter. Thank you Karl Rove, Mr. Build-the-base and demonize everyone else!
- so many instances of domestic incompetence they are too well-known to bother listing.
- an unwinnable (short of mass slaughter of all Iraqi’s) military quagmire grinding through American blood and treasure with no gains made or likely to come.
So, tell me. What exactly was the problem with Kerry? His blow-dried hair offended you guys? His decades of legislative experience? His dislike of jingoistic slogans and thoughtful approach to problems? That his combat record in Vietnam and the shrapnel still in his body struck you all as ‘Swiftboating’ lies?
Or just to proud to admit “I voted Bush. Part of these catastrophe’s responsibility falls on me” ????
Maybe Brendon, America DID get the president it deserved. Mission Accomplished! WooEee!
Lee MyungPak is the next President of Korea.
(1) Geun-hye’s supporters will hold their noses and vote for him after a few months when it becomes clear it is him or Chung Dongyong/whatever NewUri flack is thrown up.
(2) Public antipathy to Roh and the NewUri’s is too deep for even summit photo-ops and declarations of wonderful symbolic achievements to move. Hannara’s base is deeply pissed and likely to turn out en masse, while NewUri’s base is divided, dispirited, and likely to stay home voting day.
(3) This apartment deal scandals are small potatoes, politically. People truly hated that Lee Hoi-Chang’s kids skipped military service (although they didn’t, actually), but profiting from a land deal is something most of the population has done, is doing, or wants to do and doesn’t really see much morally wrong with. If this is the best smear NewUri can come up with Park will cruise through this ‘scandal.’
Ouch Brendon, that might apply for America as well. I guess if we Americans end up with an ideological-driven, diabetic, overweight rap artist for a president, then I will know that America’s season in hell is about to begin.
First of all, I am not saying that George W. Bush is the Best. President. Ever™. What I’m saying is he’s not an evil dictator, and on balance, better than the alternatives.
I’ve said it many times before but it bears repeating: In the 2004 election a ham sandwich should have been able to beat George W. Bush. That the Democrats chose to nominate a man with less appeal than the sandwich will forever remain a mystery to me.
From your litany of alleged “failures”, I can tell that you suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome and can’t be expected to respond with reason, but:
I tend to agree with you here. George W. Bush has been profligate with the spending.
After 9/11 he chose not to ask the American people for real sacrifice, and tossed “business-as-usual” bribes like that insane Medicare prescription-drug benefit at our oldsters. In my opinion this was a tragic mistake. Runaway growth in entitlements (i.e., Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, and other social programs) is what threatens our future and will strangle the American state if we don’t stop it. Unfortunately, the Democratic base is wed to more entitlements as a core plank, and that is going to cost you.
Hmm. I guess you haven’t noticed Sarkozy snuggling up at Kennebunkport lately.
True dat. But we did’t catch Hitler either.
I don’t think you’ve been paying close attention to the Republican electorate, and the conversations between and amongst us. It must be too hard to hear from inside your echo chamber. Karl Rove has not “demonized” anyone, and in general the conservative voters tend to characterize liberals as wrong, whereas the liberals — especially the so-called “netroots” — characterize conservatives as evil.
That crazy witch Ann Coulter is generally considered a crank in conservative circles. Meanwhile, the kind of vitriol you’re spewing seems to be very mainstream among liberals.
It is therefore strange for you to lay responsibility for nasty discourse at the feet of Dubya. It’s like blaming black people for racism.
I know, I know. George Bush controls the weather.
Too bad we’re winning. Ask Hillary. And the good news is, although it costs us plenty of money (which we’d find very affordable if it were not for all the non-discretionary social programs in the budget), the human cost is less than one would imagine or believe based on the rantings of Code Pink and Keith Olbermann: Link
In fact, fewer soldiers are dying each year while we’re at war in Iraq and Afghanistan than died during Bill Clinton’s peacetime administration. How’s that?
#15 Hugh:
“…Among allies, don’t expect the Canadians, Brits, Australians, etc. to be gladly joining your future adventures as loyally as they did before. Among others, a move from dislike to visceral hatred….”
“This is funny, Brendon, but not in the way you intended…”
What’s I find “funny” is that you carefully didn’t include ROK in your list of “non-loyal future adventurists”. If the price of retaining “loyalty” is that we have to elect pompous phonies like Kerry, better for the US to go it alone.
Hey, Hugh, citizens of the world like you can help us to “do the right thing”. Since you can’t control who we stupid Americans are going to elect, just tell us to “take your bases and shove it”. After all, we can’t go “adventuring” in places like Iraq and Afghanistan (and Korea) without far-flung bases to sustain the effort.
Frankly, you’d be doing us a favor. Once we’re gone, peace will be at hand and the world can heave a sigh of relief.
Brendon, read, understood and mostly-disagreed with. I’m astonished that you think Republican rhetoric from talk radio to the legislative and executive bodies could not be described vicious to Democrats. We’ll have to leave it like that.
Paul H., that post is crap. Nice try to duck the loss of confidence with real and historical allies and tie Korean stuff to me. I didn’t mention them because they don’t deserve to be mentioned. And it’d be good for the U.S. to pull troops out of Korea.
ANYHOW, back to the part you avoided, Canada, Britain and Australia DO have troops in your war zones AT YOUR REQUEST, though, and are fighting, spending their taxpayers’ money and dying for your Sept11 which had nothing to do with them, earns them lots of blowback (domestic terrorist attacks) and earns them no real gratitude and even scorn from Republicans like you. So answer this: in the future when you ask allies to participate in a major and lengthy military plan – why should your previous allies help?
Do you agree they will be more hesitant to help America? Yes or no?
Do you agree not having allied help will result in problems and higher deaths for America in future conflicts? Yes or no?
If both of these are yes, then my criticism of the Bush admin as damaging America is valid.
Ah, I give up. Talking rationally with present day Republican true believers – listing catastrophic facts makes you a ‘Bush-hater’ spewing vitriol. I swear Bush could machine gun girl scouts on the white house lawn and he’d be given a pass by y’all, What does he have on you guys? Naked pictures? When does the blind loyalty end? Even senior senators in your own party are appalled.
Where’s this scorn for Canada, Britain, and Australia you cite, Hugh?
I’m not a Republican. I’m a libertarian and Republican voter. But my family is hereditarily Democratic — old-school Tip O’Neill Taxachusetts voters (and candidates). Only I seem to have escaped their hive-mind. Growing up in Missouri and doing a hitch in the Navy purged the bile. Over here on the Dark Side I’ve found the people are very intelligent and mostly nice, which is cognitively dissonant from the line I’d been fed from birth by my family and the media: Republicans = Dumb plus Evil.
If the Democrats had anything to offer, I’d gladly vote Democratic. But they don’t, so I don’t. Even George W. Bush is preferable to that ship of fools.
That’s a surprising bit of information. I’d really like to check that out, especially to see the change by year. I’m guessing that emabassy bombings accounted for some of that, but wonder where the rest came from. Could you give us a reference?
The scorn referred to was in Paul’s post, not yours. And I have noticed a pattern of Republican disregard (at best) and activing sneering at allies in the past.
That’s one reason I’ve always tried to make my posts nationality-neutral, so that people disagreeing would concentrate on my arguments and not waste all our time with beside the point national attacks.
Since you offer your background, here’s mine: I’m a pro-American Canadian, a supporter of middle-of-the-road Canadian policies such as universal health care, firearms control and comprehensive welfare and retirement benefits. As I said somewhere else, I’m a lefty but a working class suspicious of corporate-intentions lefty, not the identity-politics crap. I’m against mass immigration into Canada (again, don’t care what you do down there) because I think it is by and large designed to gut working class wages and job security for the benefit of quarterly profit reports.
Those are middle of the road issues in Canada, however I really couldn’t care less whether America adopts them or not and am amused when American friends offer opinions criticizing these programs. This is what most Canadians want so why should you care, and whatever socially most Ameicans want well why should Canadians poke their nose in it. Since poking fun at American health care and gun control is a Canadian pastime, I’ve often found myself arguing in the minority – “Let the Yanks do what they want, what business is it of yours?”
Unlike gun policy or health care, US foreign policy does impact the lives of others. The deep well of economic sorrow coming which I believe is rooted in the Bush admin’s policies will hurt me and my children too, so I opine on it. A variety of US decisions ends up with Canadian troops dying in Afghanistan, sitting for years in the former Yugoslavia, etc. So I have an opinion on that. Most of all, I see a neighbor I like becoming more and more internally unstable and belligerent year by year. It’s a nervous thing to suspect your well-armed neighbor might be slowly losing his mind!
> the human cost is less than one would imagine or believe
> based on the rantings of Code Pink and Keith Olbermann: Link
> In fact, fewer soldiers are dying each year while we’re at war
> in Iraq and Afghanistan than died during Bill Clinton’s
> peacetime administration. How’s that?
Come on, Brendon, that’s just complete BS and a bad attempt at propaganda; you’re usually smarter and more careful than that — you apparently didn’t even read the page that you cited — that graph is comparing TOTAL deaths in the US military during the Clinton years (including, say, traffic accidents in Kansas and training mishaps in Korea) with combat deaths in Iraq only — absolute apples-and-oranges. An honest comparison, of total military deaths during years of both administrations, would show just the opposite of what you are attempting to assert. Didn’t you notice that even the right-wingers commenting below that post were pointing out the meaninglessness and illegitimacy of that apples-and-oranges comparison…?
But thank you for the Link anyway, because it is a very good example of the Rovian/Rushian brand of BS-propaganda that the remaining diehards are flinging in their attempt to justify the Iraq War and its continuation. There is no remaining honest way to do so…
#20: “So answer this: in the future when you ask allies to participate in a major and lengthy military plan – why should your previous allies help?”
Maybe because it would be in their best national interest?
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf
Total military deaths 1993-2000 under Clinton: 7500. 937.5/yr.
Total deaths due to hostile action: 1.
Total military deaths 2001-2006 under Bush (with 07 + 08 still to go): 8792. 1465.3/yr.
Total deaths due to hostile action: 2596.
Must be an example of that vaunted Republican intelligence you were bragging about earlier.
What if it is not? Being in Afghanistan is utterly irrelevant and foreign to Canada’s interest. But we’re there…why?
Because an alliance lasting a century meant something to us. And despite that Canuck any of you might have met at the bar that one time who rankled your American pride, there was little debate about joining America in Afghanistan because on the whole America has been a country we trusted and liked. Canadians were appalled and upset when you were attacked, and that was a major factor why we are in Afghanistan. You can’t point to ulterior motive gain – Canada has been given the high hand in a number of trade disputes of vital interest to Canadians since 9/11, not that I expect any Americans to know that.
I mean, we’re a country who 2 days in 1939 declared war on Germany because our friend Britain had just done it. And not even because they were attacked – because Poland was! Self-interest calculating Korea, as allies we and the Australians are not.
You back your friends up in a fight because that is what you should do, but when hopeless lunacies like Iraq and Vietnam get started, well f*ck it.
Remind me again how a post about Lee Myung-bak winning the GNP primary ended up in a discussion about Canada’s virtue as a US ally?
#27: No Canuckie has rankled my pride in a bar, but a few have made asses of themselves.
Thanks for your troops in Afghanistan, but obviously your liberal government found it in your country’s best interest to send them there, perhaps in defense of the current world order with its vast amounts of international trade, which has benefited your country, not because of overwhelming sympathy for your gun-totin’ neighbors to the south, where incidentally one of your citizens felt the need to visit to give birth to quadruplets.
#28: Sorry, Chief.
My question is: Will we see canals criss-crossing this country in four years?
blueballs, sanshin,
can you acknowledge that among all wars the US has got involved in, the fatality rate from Iraq has been the smallest ever?
That, I don’t think you can even argue with.
However, it absolutely makes America scream and wheal.
Bush said in words what I’ve been thinking over the past few months.
Can’t just leave there. They’re gonna kill each other !
But, like Obama probably thinks to himself, it’s not our problem. Let them kill each other, as long as it’s not an American life, 1 million others can die.
This will turn around quickly when they start attacking American foreign military bases a la the USS Cole or American soil like the WTC.
American Isolationism is a classic theme in American History.
The British were begging for help in Europe, but America was unwilling as a majority, until the insane Japanese bombed a Pearl Harbor missing all the entire air craft carriers.
What’s interesting is that Bush mentioned Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, and all that stands out to the American people is V-I-E-T-N-A-M.
American PTSD.
Cold War was an ideology war.
The Empire of China and the Empire of Russia fucked the world over and over with their Imperialistic interests. Map out everywhere they touched. Worse off under their occupation and influence. Before and after.
60 years have proven that American “Imperialism” has brought those regions as OECD top tier countries in living standards.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner.
#28 Apparently cosmic rays can cause mutations in blog threads, too.
Vote Libertarian.It just may work one day.
Thanks for the link, iheartblueballs, which clearly demonstrates that the US government acknowledges a greater number of US military deaths under Bush’s adminstration than while under Clinton’s turn at helm.
Brendon, why is wjk’s statement “a winner”? It’s a stupid observation that has nothing to do with anything. I have never witnessed an opponent of the Iraq War claiming that the it’s among the bloodiest wars that America ever fought; i’m pretty sure that no one has ever made that claim. I saw that the same strawman-countering-point was made on that propaganda-page you linked to, clearly the neo-cons believe that America’s great advances in battlefield medicine somehow amount to an argument that the Iraq War was or is somehow justified. A more specious and callous attempted-argument can barely be imagined.
10,000 soldier’s deaths might be considered a price worth paying (tho so horribly heavy) if America’s safety and most crucial interests were secured thereby. Even 1 soldier’s death in a war-of-personal-choice-and-ambition that runs against American values and is actually harmful to America’s important interests, is both a tragedy and a crime by the leaders who caused it.
And you have no reply to my #28…?
sanshin, why is it a stupid observation?
The point is, even by following blueballs’s link, and I blotted out War, and told you to just look at the Years and numbers, and asked you to guess when there was a war, you would have a hard time deciding when there was one.
Simple point. Iraq War loss is way, way, way, way overblown by people with agendas.
Reality. More people die in the US aside from Iraq war casualties.
How is it a stupid point that has nothing to do with anything?
It’s a stupid point, if you want to avoid crediting the US doing an objectivley efficient war effort.
I understand.
You don’t want to credit Bush.
You want to bring him down.
Suit yourself.
Numbers don’t lie.
Actually, that should be your line, but sadly numbers are not partial.
The liberal agenda behind stressing war deaths in Iraq is to bring a full retreat from Iraq, by scaring the public with the number of war deaths.
My observation is not stupid.
And in fact, I made the same observation that Bush put into words the other day, but took criticism for.
American Isolationism has ultimately proven to be an inappropriate delayed response to the wellfare of the world, in all historical instances.
and American interests have been accomplished by the Iraq War.
No attacks on US soil.
say hey, yo.
Do you think American interests would be fulfilled in the Middle East, if Iraq went about its Civil War, in the absence of US presence there, with arms feeding the war by Iran and Syria?
I’ll predict this.
Oil Shock and Terror on US Soil.
Obama, you’ll be asking Congress for war funds, 9 months into your term.
i think cnn is saying the US will settle for a military man in the style of Pakistan or former ROK Okamoto rule Iraq and eventually become a voting society.
There is a solution. It’s better than letting them kill each other for foreign interests of Shiite and Sunni states.
and what diplomacy in Iraq does Obama mean by involving Iran and Syria?
that’s like asking Hitler to take Sudetenland.
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