In contrast, coach Chuck Daly of the U.S. men's national basketball team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games didn't call time out at all until the team won gold by taking all eight matches. As legendary NBA superstars like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson dominated all opponents by a margin of more than 40 points, the best strategy for Daly was to keep his hands in his pockets.

Which camp will the 2008 Lee Myung-bak team belong to? Regrettably, the Lee team is neither the 1977 Korea University basketball team nor the 1992 U.S. team. The team colors are different for a start. There are no trustworthy players who can shift the flow at the crest of victory or defeat like Lee Choong-hee, Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson. The selection of players itself was problematic, given that Cabinet members and senior presidential secretaries are all of an ordinary caliber and that they still carry the "Ko So Yeong" label -- for Lee’s alma mater Korea University, his Somang Presbyterian Church, and his home region of Yeongnam -- and "Gangbuza" -- the rich living in the prosperous Seoul district south of the Han River who made fortunes in land speculation.

As soon as the match began on Feb. 25, ministers and senior presidential secretaries started running around every corner of the court from dawn till late at night, but figures in the score box show no signs of moving up. Far from it: the approval rating of coach Lee has nosedived to 29 percent in 70 days in office. This was unheard-of in the Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. Partly responsible were careless moves by the Transition Committee and turmoil created by the governing party's nomination of legislative candidates. More basic are the clumsy initiatives which hit the ring and bounced back. The energy-saving policy controlling private households' room heating and cooling temperature, with a fine for violations; the cut in expressway charges and public parking lot fees for cars rated grade 1 in fuel efficiency; and the policy of controlling the prices of 52 daily necessaries have all soon been reversed or had adverse effects. Boisterous rhetoric alone has been lavished on interest and exchange rates, privatization of public enterprises and the formulation of a supplementary budget.

Despite the economic woes the country faces, personnel decisions and even the party's internal affairs and party-administration cooperation are concentrated on the chief presidential secretary. Unless he is a superstar like Michael Jordan, who won top NBA scorer 10 times and won the Chicago Bulls the championship six times, matters will be hard to resolve.

It's also mysterious that the public television channels that devoted themselves to publicizing the administration throughout the past five years are bent on slapping the government in the face, claiming to trod the right course for the press as if they had suddenly woken up. Looking at the realities the administration confronts, we may well wonder what flag is still fluttering in Seoul skies despite the Battle of Incheon.

Now we have the U.S. beef scare. Which housewife won't be frightened by hair-raising mad cow disease rumors -- if you eat the wrong beef your brain will melt and be reduced to jelly. To avoid unnecessary suspicions, the administration should have formulated its negotiation plans in a transparent manner, and alleviated public concerns by giving citizens detailed explanations that anticipated possible misunderstandings. Instead, this government woke from its long nap only after the matter got out of hand and now runs about in confusion like an intern on his first day.

Coach Lee must call time out. Only then can he stop the current trend. He should issue new operational instructions lest the ball should be held by a single player, boldly replace now players who will need to be replaced sooner or later, and put the supporters’ benches in order after they were divided due to quarrels over the reinstatement of Park Geun-hye supporters. Park Han is waiting for Lee to call him for a piece of advice.