Ted, re: South Korea, my wife has been reading both the Korean news sites as well as the American ones, and she noticed that the American news has totally missed the story. The way she describes it, President Roh simply made a statement supporting his own political party in the upcoming elections, which is a no-no according to Korean campaign law. Imagine Bush saying he's hoping that Republican candidates will win in November. That would be a real travesty in American politics, would it not? (Yes, that last comment was meant to be sarcastic.)
Anyway, the conservative majority in the Assembly ran away with it and used it as grounds for impeachment. The only reason there were so many members not voting was not because they wanted to distance themselves from Roh, as I once thought. It's because they don't even want to recognize the impeachment vote. Meanwhile, Koreans are against the impeachment 70% to 30%, and they're protesting like mad. They're fearing that this is leading to a coup, a throwback to the days of the Banana Republic of Korea (as I call it).
Anyway, that's how my wife explained things to me. My Korean is nowhere near as fluent as hers, so I can't really read what she reads for myself. But I don't have any reason to doubt her interpretation of the events.
Tenchusatsu |
