The president and his closest aides are behaving like hedgehogs. Any move toward them is taken as hostile, and the spikes go up almost compulsively. When it claimed that the North's missile tests represented a failure of U.S. policy, the government made a provocative remark it should not have made and that benefited no one. U.S. leaders, though inwardly concerned about their deteriorating relations with South Korea, were outwardly stressing the durability of the Seoul-Washington alliance. But our government leaders fell back on their habit of hurting their relations with the U.S. in words even while being dragged behind America. They seem to labor under the delusion that such remarks make them look patriotic, independent and clever.

I cannot understand what urgent need prompted the unification minister to bring up the U.S. “failure” in the TV interview, and the president to repeat the rhetoric by asking, "Can't a South Korean minister say that U.S. policy has failed in that regard?” It would have been different if the U.S. had started it, making it necessary for the administration to respond. But I cannot comprehend why we had to lash out first and say something better left unsaid. I wonder if there was some reason unknown to us that they echoed one another's -- and perhaps North Korea’s -- words.

Roh's “my way” insistence on the appointment of the education and justice ministers, in the face of widespread opposition, reveals another facet of his arrogance and reluctance to admit defeat. From the point of view of common sense, presidential aides, competent or men of distinction though they may be, should at least not make themselves a nuisance to the president if they cannot be of any help. Aides are in some sense expendables who must take the fall before their mistakes affect the administration. The chief executive has aides precisely so he can ruthlessly eliminate them before the arrows of criticism reach him.

But Roh is an entirely different kind of politician, with his “contrary way of thinking.” He is loyal to his followers, rewarding anyone who helps him and making anyone who hurts him pay the price. But a president is not a gangster boss as seen in the movies. He has the job of looking after the public and taking responsibility for it. The criteria for all his judgments and decisions are the people and state. The post leaves no room to indulge in loyalty to one's followers, contrary thinking and being clever.

But now Roh has reached the culmination of his brilliant eloquence with the rhetorical question whether we can't do this to the U.S. He has climbed the apex of his contrary way of thinking and loyalty to followers with his personnel decisions about the education and justice ministers. The ouster of Education Minister Kim Byong-joon over his shoddy academic record is likely to offer a real momentum for a split of the ruling party and a shift in the political landscape. Public unease about our relations with Washington and national security is likely to become a watershed in Roh's overall mismanagement of foreign policy. That could free ruling party lawmakers and many citizens to choose a new way. The Roh administration, perhaps having nothing else left in these circumstances and infuriated by a few articles and headlines in critical newspapers, played its trump card of refusing to cooperate with reporters. But the government is going down so fast that there is little else to cover for the press, so the weapon is unlikely to hurt us very much.

Roh is in a bind. If he attempts to straighten out the situation by accepting defeat and relinquishing his loyalty to his followers, he will lose the ability to function as president. If he persists in going his own way to the end, the government has to be neutralized.