By Oh Young-jin
Assistant Managing Editor
When I read Maureen Dowd mocking George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld after their retirement, I found it unworthy of her. I also remember thinking conservative columnist Kim Dae-joong was seeking to settle a personal vendetta, when he envenomed his columns with ideological invectives against liberal former President Kim Dae-jung after he stepped down.
Above all, I believe that public figures deserve privacy when they are off stage. In other words, we journalists should leave those ``retirees'' alone and turn our focus to those in power. Obviously, it is because those incumbents run a higher risk of doing the public greater harm than those before them.
But I find myself facing the same dilemma ― which I think Dowd or Kim Dae-joong fell into ― as I followed a recent piece of news about Bush's planned visit to Korea in July.
However hard I may try to qualify my thoughts about his July visit, I, in all likelihood, will end up sounding like a Bush basher. I feel as if somebody is already telling me from behind my back, ``Knock it off.''
Secondly, I am a firm believer in free travel. At this point, some of my readers would already gather what I have to say but, for those with clairvoyance, I am asking you to bear with me for the next 500 words or so, because I will try to explain my reservations about Bush's visit on the basis of pragmatism.
First, the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the big business lobby and an official organization that will play host to Bush, says that his visit is made possible because the former U.S. President accepted its invitation with a detailed itinerary being coordinated. A couple of fixtures on tap are a speech to an exclusive forum of CEOs on Jeju Island and a reunion with President Lee Myung-bak.
``We know how close President Lee and Bush are to each other,'' an FKI official said, adding that a visit to the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae would be a highlight of the visit. In April last year, Bush, then the incumbent, invited Lee to Camp David, the presidential retreat. They rode a golf cart together in a rare show of camaraderie, although Lee had to face two months of protests over the promise he made during the visit to open up Korean beef markets.
If the FKI wanted to score points with Lee on Bush's visit, the business lobby is doing so at the President's expense. First, Bush and his gang still remain on the tip of the controversy engulfing Washington. Bush's White House legal counsel and attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, and fellow lawyers are under scrutiny for building up legal grounds to circumvent the existing anti-torture conventions and laws to allow the CIA to make ``extraordinary renditions'' and have terror suspects ``waterboarded.''
However hard Cheney is trying to defend Bush's eight-year rule, there is no knowing whether the trail will lead to the men at the top, although criminal prosecution appears not to be an option. It is a matter of course that lurking underneath the ongoing reassessment of Bush's war on terror is an attempt by the Democrats and Obama to steer the keel of the nation back to the center and toward a liberal direction in handling a wide spectrum of issues from a tax cut-based Republican approach to the ``my way or the highway'' gun-slinging diplomacy.
In a nutshell, Bush's visit is likely to put the Lee administration in an uncomfortable position with the Obama camp, especially when the two sides are not fully acquainted with each other and they still have to coordinate on such outstanding issues as North Korea and trade.
More dramatically put: if Bush speaks critically of the Obama administration, or President Lee shows a tad too much rapport with the former U.S. president during his Cheong Wa Dae visit, it could send the wrong message to the White House. The likelihood that Bush will talk tough on Obama's policies appears to be high, considering hints Bush has dropped that his legacy doesn't receive the credit it deserves, and he is apparently seeking to find an outlet for his feelings. Simply put, Bush may be in a similar mental state as Kim Young-sam, the former president who governed Korea in the lead-up to the 1997 start of the currency crisis and considers himself as a fall guy.
Some sentimentalists would take as Lee's forte his firm public handshake with Bush, praising him for sticking to his friendship. Maybe, that photo can score politically with his supporters. However, Machiavelli would turn in his grave if Lee failed to distinguish between personal and public interest and were willing to believe that politics is nothing personal and all business.
I am quite sure that Lee's protocol aides and PR officers will handle the Lee-Bush meeting well. Just in case, I suggest that, for the sake of the future of the Korea-U.S. relationship, the two would be better off with a private meeting along with a skeleton crew of aides at hand.
For the FKI, I know that it may be futile but it should attempt to steer Bush away from hot button issues, although he probably wouldn't follow any lead given. But giving it a try could save both sides a great deal of headache.