Speaking at a seminar of Journalists Association of Korea held on Jeju Island and titled "Reform Direction of the Participatory Government," Moon said that the president was able - but unwilling - to take down media companies he dislikes. "If the president should set out to kill [elements of the] news media, there are lots of methods available, and all have claws," he said. “There could be a tax investigation as soon as right now.”

Pointing out that the main mover of history in the nation's modern era has always been the president, Moon insisted that Roh was qualified enough to be a successful president, but that he was thwarted in this aim by derisive and disrespectful treatment. "He has been attacked at every turn, and every word he speaks is used to hurt him," Moon said. "It's a strange phenomenon, like sadism."

Moon said he thought the press was asking for trouble when it takes the symbols of the presidency too lightly, then used analogies comparing the president with a little girl and then a puppy to support his point. "If you have a little daughter, you have to realize how precious she is and treat her like she's precious," he said. "Only then can she grow up and then marry and make you proud."

He went on: "When you kick your puppy, all your neighbors will kick your puppy, too - and this is the president we're dealing with. Only when we respect our president can he be a big man, carry himself with dignity and fight capably for our interests in foreign countries."

Commenting on the faultfinding the media engaged in after Roh's summits in the United States and Japan, Moon said, "No other country is so crude in its criticism. Other countries give the president high marks for the recent summits, but when he gets home he gets trampled on."

The freedom to criticize is higher now than ever before in the nation's 5,000-year history, the Cheong Wa Dae aide said. Then, pointing to the crowd of journalists, he let go another barrage: "Where is your freedom to say no [to your editors]? Where is the Dong-a Protest Committee? Is there anything like this? The Dong-a Protest Committee was a group that during the military dictatorship era would protest against government controls on press freedoms.

"I don't think the foreign media are like this," Moon continued. "I have witnessed many such cases in foreign countries - they criticize about their national security and foreign affairs issues, but eventually they end up united."

Moon concluded his speech with a quote from the Bible; a scripture, Job 8:7, that is often seen on the front of Korean shops: "Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase." (Chung Woo-sang, imagine@chosun.com )