Where Is Our Bill Clinton?
By Oh Young-jin
Staff Reporter
It was last Wednesday night. I was on night duty, just finishing up the layout of the front page with the photo of the two freed American journalists uniting with their families upon arriving at a Burbank airport in California.
``We are looking at two million-dollar babes,'' one of my coworkers said, looking over my shoulder at the photo capturing an emotional Euna Lee, climbing down from the private 737 jet with her hands outstretched to embrace her daughter Hana and her movie actor husband.
``Book contracts, movie rights and an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show …'' he continued, but was interrupted mid-sentence when a junior reporter jumped in, wondering aloud whether he could get the same instant fame and fortune by re-enacting what the two reporters did ― dancing for 30 seconds with one foot on the Chinese soil and the other on the North Korean side.
``You are not American,'' I said, and we all laughed the sort of laugh we do when everyone understands what was said without elaboration.
Left to myself for the next couple of minutes, I did some analysis on that all too familiar phrase: ``You are not an American.''
Usually, it is an innuendo cynical of typical American histrionics ― dramatizing an event out of proportion often for commercial profits ― in Hollywood style. This explains why Americans are engaged in daring "dos" that other people wouldn't do. Call it the American spirit, frontierism, the Great Society, or an axis of evil and you wouldn't be terribly off the mark.
Borrowing from the Wall Street Journal's critical logic on the Obama administration's handling of the Euna Lee-Laura Ling case, it signifies an American double standard (this is hardly a revelation) ― repeatedly going back on its official stance of not negotiating with terrorists and rewarding their bad behavior for the purpose of securing the safety of its citizens caught in the lurch.
This is also part of an American state-citizen contract, which is pivotal to enabling governance by the 1-percent ruling elite over the remaining 99 percent.
At the end of my phrase parsing and rhetorical soul-searching, however, I found that a sense of envy also motivated my uttering of the ``You …'' phrase at that particular moment.
First, the obvious reason: At about the time when the two U.S. reporters were taken captive in March, North Korea detained a South Korean working for Hyundai Asan at the inter-Korean joint industrial complex in Gaeseong on trumped-up charges of vilifying the Stalinist country and luring a North Korean to defect. Last Friday, the two Americans walked without serving a day of their 12 years of hard labor in a North Korean gulag imposed by Pyongyang for spying for the United States.
The South Korean Hyundai employee remained behind. Hyun Jung-eun, Hyundai Group chairwoman and employer of the detained South Korean, visited the North amid speculation that her trip was aimed at escorting her employee back home (What gift package she took to Pyongyang in return for the release may be the subject of another column). Elsewhere, four South Korean fishermen are still held in the North.
Just imagine what those five will feel when they check back on backdated copies of newspapers for what happened during their forced absence, realizing that their country did little more than pay lip service for their release, and their freedom came as a footnote to the Washington-Pyongyang deal on the two Americans.
It would be no surprise if, after making peace with themselves about their ordeal in North Korea, they also took some pity on themselves, not just because of their lack of book deals, but about being Korean.
My analysis on the ``You…'' remark, however, wouldn't be complete without mentioning Bill Clinton. The former U.S. President proved to be a master of theatrics until the last moment of his brief North Korean journey. Upon arrival, he waited on board the airplane, letting the two freed reporters disembark and have a reunion with their families. He took care to keep the two and their families in the spotlight at the expense of his own on-air time.
I momentarily felt tempted to excuse Clinton from his Monica affair, the lowest point of his eight-year presidency. He also proved to be the thoughtful politician he was often not during his time in office by sidestepping questions about his activities in Pyongyang, a move intended to reduce public pressure on President Obama for the unofficial turn the incumbent president is taking from his hardnosed policy toward North Korea.
Perhaps the lack of such persona as Clinton in Korea is bringing my ``You...'' statement closer to the heart of the matter. As for candidates for a Clinton-style envoy to Pyongyang, former President Kim Dae-jung, one of the two Korean leaders who has met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, is all but out of the picture, fighting in a hospital bed for life. The other ― Roh Moo-hyun ― killed himself.
The remaining former presidents are also not suited for other reasons.
The current administration has placed all its cards prematurely on the table, leaving little chance for any meaningful relations with Pyongyang anytime soon.
That's why my ``You are not American" remark didn't sound like a typical tongue-in-cheek barb against gaudy Americana, but a salute in a show of respect.