It's Time to Give President Another Chance
When the anti-U.S. beef protest became fierce about a month ago, this page advised three things for President Lee; apologize, mend the deal and replace aides.
That's exactly what the President did over the past couple of days. If Lee had taken action a little earlier, things might not have got so out of control and he wouldn't have had to make a second public apology in less than a month.
Lee bowed his head deeper Thursday than three weeks ago, and his statement contained phrases like ``painful self-rebuke" and ``serious reflection on failure,'' while striking out ``unfounded mad cow scares'' from the first apology. Specific measures he cited to rectify the situation, however, appeared to fall somewhat short of people's expectations.
The contents of the new Korea-U.S. beef deal will likely be known as early as today, but key points must be about how the two governments will guarantee the imports of beef only from cattle younger than 30 months. Even the firm governmental assurance on this matter, however, will fail to completely satisfy popular demand, which also includes the elimination of special risk materials as well as regaining ``quarantine sovereignty" ― if full renegotiation is difficult.
No less unsatisfactory was the reshuffle of senior presidential secretaries Friday, which replaced a relatively obscure university president with an equally unknown school head as Lee's chief of staff, while focusing on only Cheong Wa Dae's media relationship, reflecting President Lee's unchanged belief that his fiasco in the first four months in office was due more to the lack of spin doctors than to his sincere efforts to honestly communicate with the people.
There are also other signs showing the President has yet to fully realize what's gone wrong and what should be done additionally to return things to normality. A case in point is Lee's seemingly begrudging retreat from his signature ``Grand Canal" project. It would have been much better if he had flatly renounced the pet project without attaching the precondition of ``if the people oppose it.'' Numerous surveys have shown a majority of people are against the cross-country waterway construction.
These notwithstanding, it's about time the public gave President Lee and his four-month-old administration the benefit of the doubt. Not only because the corporate CEO-turned-Seoul mayor-turned-President seems to have fully recognized his problems and is ready to start all over, but because the political and economic situations at home and abroad are too urgent to warrant ongoing candlelight vigils indefinitely.
Whether or not Lee really learned a lesson from the beef dispute will be known in next week's Cabinet shakeup. We are not calling for selecting only among officials not hailing from Lee's home province and not graduating Lee's alma mater. The main criteria should be expertise, integrity and sincerity, regardless of personal wealth or regional background.
Lee should also push ahead with public sector reform as a key administrative goal, but that should not be confused with ``implanting" his loyalists in each and every state-run corporation and organization. Particularly, the President ought to resist the temptation to take command of KBS and other public broadcasters.
People will closely watch how the President would change his leadership style in a more democratic and consensual way and tack the most urgent task. The first such signal should be shown in the government's lead in cost-cutting to revive the troubled economy.
Most of all, the President should be in no hurry to do everything. As long as he can gain the hearts of the people he leads, the remaining four-and-a-half years is still ample time to leave great accomplishments.
