Can we declare a moratorium on using the word “enigmatic” to describe North Korea’s totalitarian leadership?
The death of the North Korea dictator Kim Jong-il made the late edition of the Monday New York Times. The obituary by veteran foreign policy reporter David Sanger appeared under the rather neutral online headline “A Ruler Who Turned North Korea Into a Nuclear State.”
Reporting on the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il on Monday, CNN's American Morning re-visited a soft report from then-correspondent Alina Cho's heavily-guarded visit to the country in 2010.
Cho admitted that the state controlled where she went – but her reporting was fawning at times in what clearly was the state's effort to produce propaganda for outside nations.
Will the death of despotic dictator Kim Jong Il lead to less pandering and naive reporting on North Korea? Not if the past is any indicator. On September 19, 2005, CNN founder Ted Turner appeared on his own network to credulously insist that Kim "didn't look" evil. Turner proclaimed, "...He didn’t look too much different than most other people." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
After a bewildered Wolf Blitzer pointed out the harsh treatment of the North Korean people, Turner offered his own first-hand account: "Well, hey, listen. I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars, but...I didn’t see any brutality."
A newly posted Time-Life magazine photo montage showcased pictures of North Korea and touted photographer Christopher Morris comparing brutal dictator Kim Jong Il to the "very controlled environment" of George W. Bush's White House.
On Life magazine's website, Morris connected, "America at that time [2005] was, you'll recall, filled with a kind of blind nationalism. But Time appreciated the way I was able to work and get good photos even within that intensely restrictive environment -- and that's why they sent me to North Korea." The photographer bizarrely insisted that taking pictures in America could be "more restrictive than in North Korea."
After 17 years reigning as the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Il has reportedly died of heart failure, and his son, Kim Jong Un, has been announced as his successor. With instability in the region possibly posing a security threat to neighboring countries and abroad, governments around the world are keeping a careful eye on the region.
What do you think Kim Jong Il's death means for the future of North Korea? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Pat Buchanan regularly serves as Morning Joe's lone conservative in the show's self-described 10:1 ratio sea of lib to conservative guests. But Buchanan this morning demonstrated that he is anything but a Republican partisan.
Sounding more like Barney Frank after a bad night's sleep, Buchanan blasted President George W. Bush, claiming 43 "broke the Republican party and frankly he broke the United States as a superpower." View the video after the jump.
President Obama’s nominee to a top State Department post is one of the few American diplomats to have met North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, whom she later described as “smart, capable and supremely confident.”
Wendy Sherman traveled to Pyongyang in 2000 in her capacity as counselor to then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Visiting South Korea four years later – when she was no longer in government – Sherman had positive things to say about the reclusive Stalinist leader.
For general discussion and debate.
Possible talking point - U.S. will send a message to North Korea Sunday that includes nuclear aircraft carrier the U.S.S. George Washington:
When candidate Obama bragged of campaigning in 57 states, or Pres. Obama suggested that the national language of Austria is "Austrian," we all remember how ABC flaunted those embarrassing flubs. Or not.
But let Sarah Palin momentarily mention North rather than South Korea as our ally, and ABC finds it newsworthy. Check out the video after the jump, containing the news scroll from today's Good Morning America.
By the way, as Ben Smith has pointed out at Politico, Palin actually correctly identified South Korea as our ally earlier in her Glenn Beck radio interview.
I heard Rush mention this Caucus Blog item at the New York Times on his program today.
It seems that the Times's Michael Shear is disappointed that Dear Leader is yet again caught up in a "distraction" ("Pat-Downs Ensnare White House in New Distraction"). It's headlined in the item's browser window as "Pat-Downs Ensnare White House in New Controversy." Interesting edit, don't you think? If it's a "controversy," the President owns it. If it's a "distraction," well, it's an unfair intrusion. Clever.
Shear wrapped it in a narrative whose theme was that "It all felt vaguely familiar." Well, yeah. What's more than vaguely familiar has been the press's tendency to lament the distractions our supposedly otherwise focused like a laser beam chief executive must endure. On April 9, 2009 (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that "The words 'Obama' and 'distraction' have both appeared in 2,425 articles in just the past 30 days; excluding duplicates, it's about 450."
In his blog entry, Shear listed many other awful distractions the president has encountered. What's interesting are how many of them escalated because of Obama or people working directly for him:
Granted exclusive access to North Korea, Good Morning America's Bob Woodruff on Monday informed viewers that the incoming leader, Kim Jong Un, is "said to be a fan of basketball star Michael Jordan." [MP3 here.]
Standing next to a parade of military might in Pyongyang, Woodruff lauded, "North Korea may well be the world's most isolated country, a state with few allies, but they do know how to put on a show." At no point in the piece did the ABC journalist actually use the word dictator. Instead, he referred to Kim Jong Un as "the handpicked successor to the family dynasty."