Are touts taking odds how long Lee Hyung-bak will reamin president of South Korea/

Touts should out everywhere offering odds on how long the beleagured South Korean president Lee Hyung-bak can remain in office! It doesn't look as though he will last as John Chang Myung...a year...before the military ousted him in the early 1960's. For 18Brumaire readers today's edition of the grey lady the august doyenne of American papers 'The New York Times' has a wonderful photo on the side pages of the of a wall of shipping containers smeared with grease and oil the better to keep South Korean protesters calling for Lee Hyung-bak's resignation from scaling them. What's this obsession with walls--has an Israeli fever spread to Seoul...or an American obsession for that matter of a wall built to spearate in Iraq Sunni from Shia? Lee's wall is to keep South Koreans from bringing protest to the very gates of the Blue House where he is holding up. The protesters with a wink of the eye for irony have dubbed this boxcar borderline as a border separating South Korea from a sign saying from here begins the US of Korea. Not only that the popular imagination has made fun of Lee's name by calling him 'Lee Yong-wan', a Yi dynasty minister who helped the hated Japanese in their quest to take over Korea. Now that says much about the slim odds touts should give on Lee's chances for survivial. This man who was swept in on a landslide vote and took power in March, has proven to be a straw man...he may talk tough, but he's a tin ear when listening to the voice of his people! The bids are open...