December 14, 2007
Memo To Congress: Maybe Try Doing Things Another Way
Just a year after voting for a partisan makeover, Americans think Congress is the pits. The main reason: that body's seeming inability to get anything done.
Considering all those lengthy floor debates and filibusters don't seem to get bickering lawmakers much closer to compromise, perhaps the ladies and gentlemen of the House and Senate ought to try settling their differences the old-fashioned way.
Today, our friends in Seoul offer an example of how else the U.S. Congress might go about doing the people's business. Like the national food, politics in South Korea can be pretty spicy, and a spat over the fraud investigation of a presidential candidate had fists flying at the National Assembly.
Agence France-Presse reports: "A group of pro-government party lawmakers were forced to saw through iron cables to gain access to the National Assembly's main chamber after around 100 opposition politicians barricaded themselves in using tables and chairs. Television footage showed lawmakers from both sides shoving each other and exchanging punches and kicks in an attempt to occupy the podium, as the pro-government United New Democratic Party (UNDP) tried to clear it for a vote on the bill."
No, everybody wasn't kung-fu fighting (wrong country), but there was plenty of shoving, slapping, hair-pulling, choking and crowd-diving. Not surprisingly, Korean news agencies report that several lawmakers were injured in the kerfuffle.
This big-stick approach extends to South Korean diplomacy as well, apparently. The Chosun Ilbo reports that a summit between North and South Korean military leaders on establishing a joint fishing zone turned into a shoving match yesterday.
Coming to blows is fast becoming an annual rite in the South Korean legislature. This German news program reported on another such brawl last year... to the tune of a certain vaguely racist David Bowie hit. Stay classy, Deutschland!
Oh, yeah -- that presidential candidate at the crux of the fisticuffs, Lee Myung-bak, is almost certainly going to win election in the vote next week. That means we will soon have a new negotiating partner in the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program. Find out more about Lee in this Economist profile.
Posted at 4:39 PM
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Asia, Congress, North Korea, South Korea
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