Ever insightful Korea watcher Mike Breen weighs in on Bubba in Pyongyang:
The unexpected mission to North Korea this week by former U.S. president Bill Clinton indicates the Obama administration is deploying a new weapon in the struggle with its most difficult opponent in Asia.
That is, its willingness to exploit the North Korean weakness for face.
The dispatch of such a senior elder statesman had more impact on the North Koreans than all the brawn and threats that characterized the Bush years because it touched the proud, impoverished state where it most hurts: its international isolation and inability to escape its need to behave badly.
North Korea is like the clown in the street playing for pennies. He would rather be among friends in the audience, but knows no other role. When a nice and important person, like Bill Clinton, steps out from the annoyed cinema queue, cash in hand, and asks if he’s having a good day, he gets normal for a moment.
Needless to say, Mr. Breen is a bit more optimistic about the whole exercise than I — rather than Obama exploiting the North Korean weakness for face, I view it as North Korea exploiting our weakness for our citizens’ well-being.
Read the thing in its entirety.
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I’m glad Lee and Ling are safe. Now, please fire them! It will give them more time to write a book, anyway. This episode exemplifies almost too starkly, what’s wrong with the media-industrial complex in America. Two reporters so their jobs poorly, and become the story itself.
Furthermore, their incompetence highlights their own organization more than the subject of their own reporting. And then, they are bailed out by a former president, clearly affecting bilateral relations between the DPRK and US. And now, an editorialist keeps the spotlight shining for his own purposes, ensuring that the commentariat of the blogosphere will give this episode immortality. Damn the media, including Breen, and damn Lee and Ling!
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