Ave, Fred!

Journalist Frédéric Ojardias tweets:

Trop fermée, trop lente, fuyant les médias, déconnectée, mal entourée... la présidente sud-coréenne dans la tourmente...

Translation:

Too closed off, too slow, fleeing the media, disconnected, poorly staffed... the South Korean president in turmoil...

I tweeted back to Fred:

Avant de lire "la présidente sud-coréenne," j'ai cru que vous parliez d'Hillary Clinton.

i.e.,

Before reading "the South Korean president," I thought you were talking about Hillary Clinton.

The parallels certainly are interesting to consider. Nota bene: this isn't to say that a female leader will necessarily be less competent than a male one: there are far too many examples of male incompetence for that to be true, and there are plenty of examples of strong, competent female leadership (Margaret Thatcher comes to mind, and Angela Merkel nowadays, to name two). But President Park and Hillary Clinton both seem to be following a pattern. Both come from entitled backgrounds; both have known only privilege, and both do seem to be living inside a reality-defying bubble marked by secrecy, oversensitivity, and lack of clear, decisive communication with the public. What would an HRC presidency look like? It'd probably look a lot like what we're seeing in South Korea. And that's a good reason to worry.


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