Korean Job Discussion Forums

[leebumlik69]

[slow_life]

[Ya-ta Boy]

This is from the Chosun Ilbo. Yes, it's a conservative president and yes they have complained and objected to 99% of everything Roh has done or tried to do... but it's still a good read.

Not Anyone Can Be a President by Yang Sang-hoon

President Roh Moo-hyun is said to have proposed re-naming the East Sea or the Sea of Japan the "Sea of Peace" when he met with his Japanese counterpart last year. Is that the only incident we didn�t know about where the president hurt our national interest abroad? How embarrassing. Imagine what the Japanese premier must have thought about South Korea and its president.
In a democracy anyone can become president. But not everyone has it in them to be president.

Arguments over whether any specific person is qualified for the presidency are usually settled by the remark that �even Roh Moo-hyun� got the job. Anyone can do it, the remark implies. This is a terrible misfortune for our country.

The president is responsible for safeguarding the independence, continuity and territory of the state. The president of a country sandwiched among bigger powers and threatened with nuclear arms from the North must be courageous and resourceful. The Constitution tells the president to tread the nation's thorny path and even to achieve unification through peaceful means.

The president is the only official empowered to declare war. No one who is even slightly aware of what that means would think anyone can be president. The president is the supreme commander of 670,000 soldiers. The military is not a place where our sons and daughters �rot away� but a sacred organization where they pledge to accept death for the sake of the country. Tens of millions of soldiers, ordered to fight by the republic's presidents, lie in the national cemetery or in unmarked graves somewhere else. It is the president who has to decide when to order troops to sacrifice themselves; when the time comes, he must make a resolute decision.

The presidency doesn't permit its holder to say even in jest that he respects Mao Zedong, who invaded our country, depriving it of an opportunity for unification and slaughtering South Korean troops and civilians. Had the U.S. called for dismantling Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, the president should have resisted it with all his strength, let alone asking for it before the U.S. even mentioned it.

It's no exaggeration to say that no citizen is completely free from the influence of the president. He has the power to force the people to pay W200 trillion (US$1=W938) in tax. He is naturally responsible for achieving economic growth to ensure stability and prosperity for the people. His is not a job where you can randomly drop bombshells that cause serious disturbance.

The politician with the greatest influence, the president�s task is to unite, not divide, the people. Attacking one side after dividing the people into "them" and "us" is precisely what he should protect us from. It is unimaginable for a president who solemnly pledged before the Constitution to serve the people to lash out at them saying, "I've stopped paying attention to public assessment."

The president selects the chief justice, Supreme Court justices, and the president and judges of the Constitutional Court. In the past four years, Koreans have seen what a great impact those selections have had on the course of our society. The president also holds the lifeline of 1.6 million civil servants. It is the president who determines who becomes an executive in the hundreds of state-owned corporations. The personnel appointment prerogative is not given him to provide jobs to his cronies or to appoint a person as unification minister who does not even know that rice aid to North Korea is offered in the form of a loan.

The president also appoints the chief executives of public broadcasting stations. The authority is not given to him so he can convert public broadcasting into presidential broadcasting. He also exercises the formidable authority of granting amnesties to people indicted by the prosecution and convicted by the courts. The authority, too, is not meant for him so he can get close associates out of jail free.

Hardly a day passes by without one presidential scandal or another. The �Sea of Peace� gaffe was overtaken within a day by his call for a constitutional amendment to change the presidential term of office. It takes much more than that to be president.

[Zoidberg]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Zoidberg]

That's what I took it to mean, which is why it's so funny. Completely opposed to the whole concept behind proposing "Sea of Peace".

[Otus]

You don't need to worry so much about Bush now ... You got the democrats back in Congress and Senate ... Oh boy, look out, by golly, now you're really going to see things start to happen!

[slow_life]

Just name it the SEA OF FIRE.....and N Korea will jump on the bandwagon, I'm sure.

[billybrobby]

I've also got an inquiry.

Are horribly bad loaded questions a good idea?

[sadsac]

Though many people agree with what Roh proposes regarding the Constitutional amendment, most thought Roh's timing was very poor. Yes, lets change the system, but later not now.

[Zoidberg]

[Captain Corea]

[mack the knife]

[Yaya]

He says he also won't leave office early. DAMN!

[Pak Yu Man]

I was talking to my wife about this and she said this

"All his time in office and Koreans only remember one thing he did...got an eyejob".

Ah to be remembered as the prez that got plastic surgery...lame.