Roh Lashes Out at Former Defense Chiefs A President at a Dead End The Schoolyard Bullies in Cheong Wa Dae Roh Vows to Go Out Fighting Ex-Defense Chiefs Hit Back at Roh Roh Attacks ‘Privilege’ in Media, Prosecution Do You Feel Lucky?

At a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Roh Moo-hyun blamed controversy over a speech last Thursday on his "unfiltered words." Being "everyone's whipping boy," he said, was "one of the prices of democracy." "I've been patient with the attacks on me many times, but from now on, I’ll explain and respond each time such a thing happens,” he said.

Oh dear: the country will not see a quiet day until his tenure mercifully expires. "I've been patient,” the chief executive said. If his frequent and often unprovoked outbursts so far have been a sign of patience, we dread to think what lies in store for us now.

But the president has more important things to ponder than this. The number of challenges that lie ahead for the year 2007 is quite unprecedented for the final year of an administration. The North Korean nuclear crisis must be ended. The international community will not let North Korea remain a nuclear power. Experts predict that the North will test a second nuclear device next year. How will the president, with an approval rating of some 10 percent and without genuine support from the armed forces, brave the difficulties?

Korea-U.S. negotiations over wartime operational control of Korean troops are to resume in the first half of next year, as will free trade negotiations, with the U.S. government’s FTA fast-track authority due to expire in March. Construction of an administrative city and the so-called “innovation cities” is to start next year. Every one of these tasks will have a lasting impact on the nation's security and economy.

Korea’s 13 economic research institutes cite household bankruptcies caused by the bursting real estate bubble as a major risk to our economy next year. Mortgages surpassing W214 trillion (US$1=W930) are a time-bomb. The Korea Development Institute forecast that next year's economic growth rate will be 4.4 percent, 0.6 percentage points lower than this year's. Uncertainty in the foreign exchange market is also a major threat. In such circumstances, next year's presidential election, many believe, will be the most fiercely fought ever.

The people are looking to the president because it is a presidential duty to find answers to difficult problems and unite the people behind him. What the president should lose sleep over is what answers he will give to all Koreans, not how to launch angry counterattacks against people he doesn’t like.

One remaining mission is how to hand over the country to his successor without a hitch. One way to serve the population is to rectify any errors and reduce the burden of the next administration. Charging ahead with his obstinacy and self-righteousness to the end, be it from ideological conviction or personal feeling, would mean calamity for us all. Late though it is, the president should agonize over how to take the country back to normal and open a path for the government in that direction.

With just over a year to go, the president must refrain from scheming anything else. But judging from his recent remarks, he seems bent on personally steering politics through the next presidential election in a bid to perpetuate his administration. Already there is talk about which politicians he wants to see punished. Not content with that, he says he will engage in politics after his retirement. But a president indulging in a personal political struggle to the detriment of his mission spells doom for his country.

Now is the time for the president to conclude what he has undertaken, if he must, not initiate new programs. But Cheong Wa Dae is already trying to pit “them” against “us” again with an eye on the election. Plans to shorten compulsory military service are but one gamble in a strategy geared to the presidential election. It is despicable of the president to use the national government for his own political ends.

The president should also try to leave no further scars in people’s hearts. A presidential word is a powerful thing. The right word at the right time can light up the country, but the wrong word can be a lethal weapon. There have been many lethal weapons among Roh’s utterances to date: saying that he will no longer restrain himself is an outright threat to the people.