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President Lee Myung-bak is stalled in the worst snowdrift. Elected president on account of his campaign pledge to be a business president, the economy continues plunging since his inauguration. To be sure, he was unlucky. Oil prices and raw material prices soared. But his economic ministers, obsessed with making a breakthrough to growth through exports, fumbled the exchange rate and caused a rise in prices. If you have neither luck nor talent in the economy -- where luck is said to be 70 percent and talent 30 percent -- you are doomed.
The unfortunate results of the beef negotiations with the U.S., rammed through for the sake of improving relations with America, plunged the country into the tragicomedy of the beef protests. Public networks run by taxpayers' money and TV subscription fees stoked fears of mad cow disease among middle school students and naive housewives. Candlelight vigils took over the streets, and law and order crumbled. All the while, the president and his secretaries and Cabinet were nowhere to be seen.
The principles of the new government's North Korea policy -- resolution of the nuclear issue first and economic cooperation later -- were abandoned altogether after a few anxious overtures when there was no response from North Korea. Several hours before the president in a speech before the National Assembly extended an unconditional hand to the North, burying his "principledˇ± North Korea policy, the North took aim and shot an innocent South Korean woman in her 50s, as if telling us that its ˇ°one nationˇ± slogan applies only when it is advantageous to it. South Koreans were uncertain whether they could believe their ears.
"Pragmatic diplomacy" suffers. China in a lordly manner rebuked the alliance diplomacy of this independent sovereign country as "a historic relic," and when our president was visiting it. There is no reason Japan should not take advantage of the situation. Putting economic exchanges, cooperation in dealing with North Korea and environmental diplomacy aside, Tokyo stabbed our president in the back, after he offered to look to the future and let bygones be bygones, by repeating its claim to the Dokdo islets.
The president now stands at the edge of a precipice. The oar is broken, the sail is torn: it's hard to find phrases for the urgency of the situation. In danger, surrounded by foes on all sides, isolated -- none of that is quite enough to paint the current situation. It all stems from the wrong personnel decisions, with their suggestions of nepotism and favoritism.
There has been no instance anywhere when a country has prospered while its president was in trouble. The danger and loss the president faces directly represent the danger and loss the nation faces. That is why it is said that national prosperity or ruin depends on the people. All roads available to the chief executive are closed, except to inspire the public.
President Lee will have to stake his fate on inspiring the minds and hearts of the ordinary citizens with honesty, humiliation and sincerity. If that gate is still open, the country, the people and the president can survive. But if that gate is closed, what is the point of looking toward the future?
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