Korea Diary, 8 Jun 06

Uri Death Watch: North Korea is preparing for life after conservatives return to power in South Korea. While it’s premature for anyone to presume, I suppose it’s prudent to prepare. What’s really disturbing, from the perspective of journalistic ethics, is how the Chosun Ilbo is engaging in its own private diplomacy with the North, which certainly implies more favorable coverage in exchange for something — such as access. Now, the American media have made the same faustian deals in both Iraq and (I suspect) North Korea.

This is why you have to shop for your news.

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Just shoot the damned thing already.

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The Uri Party seems to be papering over its differences out of sheer exhaustion. The result, ironically, is that the party is moving further to the left:

The governing Uri Party seemed yesterday to have smoothed over some of the intra-party conflicts stirred up by last week’s election defeat.

Legislators and other members designated yesterday an eight-member committee to name an interim leadership slate until a party convention next February can select permanent replacements. Kim Geun-tae, the last man standing among Uri’s obvious choices for its presidential nomination next year, is likely to get the job.

Mr. Kim, who lost a party election for chairman in February to Chung Dong-young, is a former student activist and a leader of the party’s firebrand faction. While he is not popular among more pragmatic party members, there appears to be little appetite in the party for another battle right now.

For the moment, Roh may have dodged the bullet. Kim is believed to be close to Roh. If you’re not an Uri fan, you wanted new, more electable leadership to emerge. This move, for however long it lasts, prolonges the Korean left’s decline toward ever greater unpopularity.