One more apology

How many Koreans would sympathize with Lee?

After dragging his feet, President Lee Myung-bak apologized Tuesday for corruption scandals implicating his relatives and key aides. In his sixth ― and second concerning irregularities of behavior by the people around him ― public apology, President Lee used far stronger expressions of self-reflection than before, and bowed deeply not once but twice.

But that was all. All other elements, such as the content of Lee’s speech, the way he one-sidedly delivered the four-minute address, and the suspicion about reasons for the hurriedly-arranged press meeting, kept the public from feeling sympathy for their leader.

Lee coundn’t put off making the apology any more if he had wanted to. Only 18 percent of Koreans say the President is doing his job well, and some in the ruling Saenuri Party are seeking to force the unpopular chief executive to leave the party to minimize negative effects on the Dec. 19 presidential election. Lee didn’t receive even a single courtesy applause during his parliamentary speech last month.

Still, one can’t help but wonder why he arranged the much-delayed event to coincide with the TV debate among his party’s presidential contenders. Only one news-only cable channel could broadcast it live. Most Cheong Wa Dae correspondents and even many of Lee’s own aides were reportedly notified of the news conference with little more than an hour to go. Certainly, it was hardly a proud moment but the President’s behavior was not that of one showing genuine repentance.

A far more serious problem was the wording of the speech. He described the illegal receipt of bribes as “unsavory acts” committed by his aides and relatives. A more apt term for such activities is crimes.

The President, who used to boast his administration was “morally perfect,” neither cited specific aides or relatives and what they have done wrong in detail nor explained why he failed to prevent its “perfect moral collapse.” Lee said all these development “crushed his heart,” insinuating the President himself was also a victim, albeit of his own mismanagement of the people around him. But it was hardly the expression to be used by a leader who crushed the hearts of so many of the voters who had elected him.

We can try to understand Lee’s omission of scandals the President himself is involved in, such as the abortive property purchase for building his post-retirement home and his government employees’ unlawful surveillance of privatize citizens critical of the chief executive, as major parties have agreed to conduct parliamentary hearings.

But never to be understood is the President’s failure to make the pledge to have law enforcement authorities conduct thorough investigations into all these scandals he was apologizing for. Given the Korean prosecution’s blind loyalty to “live power,” no one can rule out the possibility of controversy behind the slipshod probes and undeserving leniency.

In the long run, the imperial presidential system itself should change to become a more decentralized one, and the prosecution needs to be free from the President’s control. More urgent now, however, is for President Lee to instruct thorough probes leaving no sanctuary.

Otherwise, no one can say Tuesday’s apology will be Lee’s last, or that Lee will be the last president to apologize to his people. <The Korea Times>

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