Emboldened by the opposition party’s offensive, leftwing newspapers and broadcasters that served as the mouthpiece of the Roh Moo-hyun administration and certain civic groups supporting leftwing media organizations, are joining the attack on Choi in articles and broadcasts. Their claims can be broadly divided into two categories. One is to question the objectivity of Choi, in light of his purported role as a mentor to President Lee. The other attacks Choi’s ethics, alleging that his real estate assets were amassed through speculative dealings.

Throughout the Roh administration, the ideological shift to the Left of Korea’s public broadcast stations, whose duty is to remain neutral, was a simmering issue. Korea’s public broadcaster, funded by taxpayers’ money and TV subscription fees, broadcast program after program portraying the founding of the Republic of Korea as a mishap, while berating our anti-Communist founding fathers as being pro-Japanese or collaborators. Not only that, they produced tear-jerker TV dramas portraying Communist sympathizers in South Korea as having sacrificed their precious youth to fighting the torrent of history.

These unbelievable programs were produced and aired to support the historical views of the former president, who announced proudly that the history of the Republic of Korea was a failure of justice and triumph of opportunism. This type of programming became so rampant that all right-thinking people voiced serious concerns about the impact it would have on young Koreans. And it was this concern that led to the humiliating defeat of the progressive camp in the presidential election. In its most basic form, the programs aired by Korea’s public broadcaster should not slander the history of the Republic of Korea. What’s simply unbearable is that the leftwing press and progressive media rights organizations, who were silent when the last president appointed his favorite people to head the Korean Broadcasting Commission, are suddenly having a fit over objectivity and fairness.

Certain leftwing news media have raised suspicions that Choi’s ownership of farmland in Bundang and Asan and the fact that he briefly changed his Seoul address were attempts to register himself illegally in different regions in order to engage in speculative property deals. But Choi has submitted legal documents showing that there was no problem with him buying the farmland in question, since it was part of zones designated for urban development. Choi also explained that he changed his Seoul address for one month so that his son could have a chance to get a medical exam for his military service, since he had missed the timing for that under his original address. The allegations being raised by the opposition and its supporters should be backed up by concrete evidence at a National Assembly hearing, not raised outside simply to boost the impact of their ideological offensive.