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There is nothing wrong in itself with president-elect Lee Myung-bak's proposal to renovate the gutted Namdaemun or South Gate with public donations. Once the ancient gate has been rebuilt, we will be proud that public contributions funded its renovation. But Lee shouldn't have mentioned the plan on the day immediately after the collapse of national asset no. 1, when people's fury was still raw. Though made with good intentions, the remarks angered many people.
It was at a meeting of the Transition Committee that Lee made the proposal. We sometimes become obsessed by an impromptu idea: if the idea is wrong, someone has to slam on the brakes. There were many people at the committee meeting; not all of them can have failed to foresee the repercussions of the proposal. One or two, at least, must have thought, "Hold on."
At first no one spoke. Then Transition Committee Chairwoman Lee Kyung-suk said it was a magnificent idea. If they found it difficult to contradict Lee in public, they might have conveyed their objections privately after the meeting was over. But none of them seems to have done that. The Transition Committee immediately announced a public donation campaign will be conducted once the new government is inaugurated. Within a day, Chairwoman Lee had to apologize to the indignant public.
At 8 p.m. on Sunday, president-elect Lee announced his Cabinet lineup. It was not a good idea for the next Cabinet to line up and meet the public. Within the Lee team, the feeling was it would have been better to make the lineup public the morning after watching the outcome of the bipartisan negotiations over the government reform plans. But it took a fait accompli for these voices to emerge.
Lee cancelled his plan to conduct a workshop with his first Cabinet even before the lineup was made public. If someone strongly objected, the new Cabinet should never have met at all. Insiders should also have restrained the naming of senior presidential secretaries -- half hailing from Seoul and the rest from the Yeongnam region or Gyeongsnag provinces. Then Lee attended events at his alma mater twice in a month. Someone should have stopped him.
Since the GNP presidential primary, the word "no" has disappeared from the environs of Lee Myung-bak. Objections are said to have rapidly dwindled since his approval ratings passed 50 percent. The atmosphere around Lee, who was elected with the largest margin on record, is not hard to imagine. He is now exercising his personnel prerogative for numerous positions including his presidential secretaries, Cabinet ministers and vice ministers, public enterprise presidents and auditors, as well as the nomination of party candidates for the upcoming general election. Unless you are very bold, you are not going to say no to him now. The senior GNP leaders who raised objections during the presidential primary have stepped back from the front.
Lee-watchers think he puts the top priority on loyalty when he screens his people. It's usual for loyalists to say yes -- they tend to do whatever they are told to do by their seniors -- but often they are either incompetent or hide their private ambitions. Presidents often find too late that such people eventually bring disaster.
Looking at the Cabinet lineup on Sunday, I wondered who among them will be able to say no to the chief executive. A car, when the brake is out of order, stops only when it hits a wall. The faster it runs, the greater the damage.
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