Yang is a celebrity among public servants -- much more famous than most government ministers. That's not because of his rank, but his power. Vice ministers who have more experience and rank above Yang, are often chided by him. Yang's power comes from President Roh. Many Koreans remember Yang for his accomplishments resulting from his "creativity and diligence" and the confidence the president has placed in him.

In August of 2004, Yang made an unprecedented telephone call to the Samsung Group and demanded the conglomerate share the cost of a ceremony announcing the launch of digital broadcasts. President Roh would be attending the ceremony. When this fact was reported by the press, Yang initially denied the reports but eventually confessed. In the eyes of the presidential office, turning directly to a major business conglomerate for a handout must be considered "creative."

Yang's "diligence" has led to a long list of famous incidents. When the vice minister of culture and tourism rejected pressure from the presidential office to instate a vice president at Arirang TV in August of 2006, Yang had verbally threatened the vice minister through one of the ministry staff. When President Roh was preparing to announce a Constitutional amendment in January of this year, Yang called a high-ranking official at a broadcast station and demanded the announcement be aired live.

A few days ago Yang made a personal visit to the Ministry of National Defense and criticized the vice defense minister for being too slow in closing down the ministry's pressroom. The Cheong Wa Dae Briefing, a pseudo-news Internet website serving as an unbridled mouthpiece of the government, has become Yang's personal notebook where he posts his erroneous ideas at whim. The presidential office has lauded Yang's stubborn insistence on pursuing such unjust policies, viewing those acts as "diligence."

In January of 2006, the Roh administration degraded the value of the country's medals of merit by awarding them to 30 officials at the Ministry of Finance and Economy, Ministry of Construction and Transportation and the National Tax Service for devising measures to counter rising real estate prices. Those government officials were recognized for their efforts in stabilizing real estate prices. Soon after, their measures were proved failures after the prices of apartments in Seoul surged between tens of millions and hundreds of millions of won. Just two months after those medals were given, the government had to hastily come out with new measures.

In awarding Yang the medal, perhaps what the president really wanted was to tell the public that he and Yang plan to do whatever they want, no matter what anyone says.