Monday, July 7, 2008

Kim Jong the Second

http://www.slate.com/id/2194921/

Slate.com
7 July 2008

Farewell to a Provincial Redneck
Jesse Helms' stranglehold on U.S. foreign policy was a national embarrassment.

By Christopher Hitchens

[...] It was a scandal that a man with so little knowledge of the outside world should have had such a stranglehold on American foreign policy for so long. He once introduced Benazir Bhutto as the prime minister of India. All right, that could have happened to anybody. But what about the hearings on North Korea in which he made repeated references to "Kim Jong the Second"? In order to prevent any repetition of this idiotic gaffe, Helms' staff propped up a piece of card on which was clearly written the pronunciation "Kim Jong ILL." The senator from North Carolina duly made the adjustment, referring thenceforth to the North Korean despot as "Kim Jong the Third." [...]
~~~~~~~~~~
Christopher Hitchens, "Farewell to the Helmsman," Foreign Policy, no. 126 (Sep./Oct., 2001), p. 69.

In March 1995, reading a prepared statement on North Korea, he had some harsh words for a man named "Kim Jong Two." Embarrassed staffers spun this as a pun on the monarchical succession from Kim Il Sung but took care to annotate Helms's next script with the phonetic spelling "Kim Jong ILL." Like a champ, the old warhorse got to this passage and declared: "We are entitled to know the nature of President Clinton's commitment to North Korean dictator Kim Jong the Third."
~~~~~~~~~~
http://rwrld.blogspot.com/2008/07/jesse-helms-and-kim-jong-third.html

R World [Blog]
5 July 2008

Jesse Helms and Kim Jong the Third

Ron Davison

[...] But perhaps my favorite example of how inappropriate was Helms in the role as head of the foreign relations committee, he referred to North Korea's leader as Kim Jong the third (Kim Jong III). When an aid pointed out his error, Helms then refered to Kim Jong-il as Kim Jong Ill. [...]
~~~~~~~~~~
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00E3DB1E31F934A15753C1A9669C8B63

New York Times
27 October 2000

Lazio Criticizes President For Weak Foreign Policy

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

[...] With less than two weeks left in his campaign for Senate against Hillary Rodham Clinton, [Representative Rick] Lazio gave one of the most detailed speeches of his entire campaign, a tough-talking address that echoed the criticisms of the White House made by George W. Bush this year. [...]

Indeed, Mr. Lazio seemed comfortable and in command, both in delivering the written speech and in answering questions from students and faculty, on issues ranging from the role of the United Nations (limited) to how much influence members of Congress should have on the nation's foreign policy (fairly extensive). He ran into difficulty only at one point, referring to the leader of North Korea as ''Kim Jong the Second.'' Mr. Lazio apparently misread the text, which correctly named the North Korean leader as Kim Jong Il. [...]

No comments:

Post a Comment