Lord Haw Haw of Pyongyang

Selig Harrison’s latest op-ed is such a bizarre departure, even by his own declining standards, that I had to read it for myself to really believe it. I have little to add to what Kushibo has already said about this, except to stare agape at Harrison’s use of language. He calls South Korea’s elected President Lee Myung Bak is a “hard-liner,” while hereditary tyrant Kim Jong Il is a “leader.” Deaths that North Korea caused with malice aforethought are attributable only to “cycles” that we are duty-bound to break through appeasement and concessions. He mischaracterizes the multinational investigation that found North Korea guilty of sinking the Cheonan as a “South Korean inquiry.”

I don’t think this leaves any real question open as to where Harrison’s sympathies lie. Selig Harrison just saw North Korea shell a South Korean fishing village, kill and maim civilians, and create Korea’s first population of war refugees since 1953 … and still, he not only constructs some elaborate justification for this, he has the chutzpah to demand that South Korea sign a peace treaty, but only after the United States unilaterally cedes its territory first. What else really needs to be said?