By Oh Young-jin
Assistant managing editor
Politics is a game of relativity. In this game, two plus two does not necessarily equal four. Rather, the answer can be four, three, two, one or sometimes minus two.
Very much affecting the outcome is how one views a given situation.
By this standard, there is no reason for President Lee Myung-bak to lose heart over the dismal results of the recent hearings at the National Assembly that forced of his three key nominees, including Prime Minister-designate Kim Tae-ho, to withdraw and quit.
More importantly, President Lee should pick up where he left off and press ahead with his governing agenda for the second half of his five-year tenure, hopefully learning from his mistakes.
Perhaps, he may find himself wondering how he can keep a straight face and lead the nation, when his chosen few proved to be a dirty bunch of unethical, immoral opportunists, at least from the perspective of the public?
The answer is simple and complicated at the same time.
Simple, because he can take pride in the fact that he succumbed to the public’s will, when he withdrew his nominations, although it was made to look as if the nominees themselves had given up voluntarily.
A good leader identifies the people’s needs and addresses them but, when there is resistance, whether he sees it is based on their myopic view or amplified by political factors, he can bite the bullet and accommodate them.
The problem, however, is that Lee is regarded as a strong-headed president, who has gone one too many times against the grain of public opinion to be given the benefit of the doubt. He tried to go his way on his bid to nix the relocation of some government ministries to a new administrative capital but failed, in the process losing a great deal of political capital. He is still not giving up on his grand plan to redevelop four major rivers despite strong protest from environmentalists, who claim that it is his disavowed campaign pledge for the Grand Canal project, being disguised in a different name.
In a way, it would not be hard to see why Lee is impatient with his campaign pledges.
As someone who led the Hyundai Engineering and Construction firm during the construction of the Seoul-Busan Expressway, Lee may be lamenting over how the public can’t see what he is seeing so clearly ― a monumental piece of infrastructure that will benefit the nation for generations to come.
Maybe, 10 years or 20 years from now, Lee’s rationale goes, the people will regret defying his advice and balking at his civil engineering projects. He may be thinking about how the restored Cheonggye Stream flowing across downtown Seoul is being enjoyed by so many Seoulites, as well as the boost it gave him on his way from Seoul mayor to the elected president of the nation.
Or as a person who grew up at the height of the “development dictatorship,” led by the Army general-turned-politician Park Chung-hee, Lee believes a leader should steer the nation in a direction he believes is right, often irrespective of the people’s will.
That chapter of Korea’s history is long over.
But it shouldn’t discourage him or fetter him in a “bunker mentality,” forcing him to hide behind the wrought iron fence of Cheong Wa Dae, believing that everyone else except for his close aides and family members are all after him.
Those outside the presidential gates are not your enemy but people who are waiting to be led. Here arises a need to take stock of your supposed enemy.
The main opposition Democratic Party, combined with a ragtag mob of other political oppositionists, is raising a ruckus but their number is too insignificant to be taken too seriously. Besides, they have not found their own future direction, namely their next leader to rally around or a potential standard bearer to support in the next presidential election.
If President Lee is surprised to see a big shadow and becomes afraid, that shadow is certainly not that of the opposition parties or Rep. Park Geun-hye, his political rival, but most likely his own. The opposition tends to be a force of negativity that may be good at finding fault with the establishment but often falls short of providing leadership for the future.
The final question is how Lee can use the political rule of relativity to his advantage and, ultimately, to the nation’s.
It is important for Lee to realize the fine difference between a partisan loss and a political loss and pick the first, if he is forced to make a choice.
Regarding the recent Cabinet shakeup debacle, Lee can perform better damage control by limiting it to a partisan loss by highlighting his decision to withdraw his support from the nominees as a grand political act of humbly accepting the people’s will.
To do so, it needs some political stagecraft that doesn’t enlist the help of experienced political spin doctors. Rather, he can call a news conference to talk directly to the people about how he will lead during the next two and half years as president, making public apologies, if necessarily.
The Kim Dae-jung administration had to make apologies a dozen or so times at the end of its tenure, after passing up such an opportunity at an earlier time, while the Roh Moo-hyun government lost public credibility for making too many attempts to deliver the message directly to the public.
Learn from those errors and speak to the people now, Mr. President!