August Statesmanship, Uri Style

Satan: I thought I killed you!

Saddam Hussein: Well, where was I gonna go? Detroit?

The Uri Party continues to breathe with the assistance of an iron lung and a feeding tube. In that interminable moment after the first mortar round hits the chicken farm, its members are smacking into each other as they all rush for different exits. Thus we have rebellions breaking out within the larger rebellion, led by the incumbent ruling party chair, Kim Geun-Tae. And it’s fun to watch.

Kim Geun-tae and Chung Dong-young, the party’s leading presidential contenders, have another headache as well. Some Uri members suspect, not surprisingly, that the two men’s efforts to form a new party are driven more by their presidential ambitions than the party’s welfare.

Calls are beginning to sound within the party for the two men to recuse themselves from the efforts to reshape the party. Last week, Kim Boo-kyum, Jung Jang-sun, Oh Young-sik and Cho Bae-sook said after a meeting they agreed that it was “not desirable” for the two men to be involved in the realignment. The four legislators are allied with neither the pro- nor anti-Roh factions. Representative Choi Jae-cheon attacked both Mr. Kim and Mr. Chung, saying their version of a new party would be only a carbon copy of the present one. He then complained that pro-Roh party members were “trying to make another party only for Mr. Roh.”

A pro-Roh party member, Kim Du-kwan, called on Mr. Kim and Mr. Chung to abandon publicly their presidential bids. Another, Shin Ki-nam, complained that despite their protestations that the party’s renovation should be free from factional fights, the two leaders had already stacked the preparatory committee for next month’s party convention with their supporters.

Getting a bit more personal, Kang Bong-kyun of the party asked Mr. Kim to resign as chairman, calling him a “pro-North Korean leftist.”

Mr. Kang may redeem his free beer of choice on demand, by presenting me with a copy of this post and one form of identification.

Mr. Kim replied that Korea already had a reactionary party with a cold-war mindset, and invited Mr. Kang to switch to the Grand National Party. Mr. Chung sighed, “I am already bearing unlimited responsibility for the party and the Roh administration.”

Now there’s your image of august statesmanship. It leads to the main deficiency of democracy: people get the government they deserve.