South Korea's Lee Myung-bak resigns

Is Lee Myung-bak the Grand National Party's man in the Blue House a flash in the pan? It seems so. Carried to the presidency of South Korea by a landslide majority in less than 5 months, he's out.
Herr Bush welcomed his election because Lee campaigned on closer US ROK ties which had loosened more out of Herr Bush's dumb policy towards South Korea; Herr Bush didn't take kindly to Kim Dae Jung's Sunshine policy towards that axis of evil North Korea, which his successor Roh Myun-hoo continued. And in the end Herr Bush's blustering brought him to dealing directly with Kim Jong-il. Herr Bush is a chump so when he warmly greeting the newly elected Lee Myung-bak in Washington, he twisted the poor fellow's arm and got not only a free trade agreement out of him but a signature on the dotted line allowing for the reintroduction of US beef to South Korea. Now, beef is a sacrament in South Korea in the same way the purity of cooked white rice is in Japan; in wanting to please Herr Bush Lee unleashed a fire storm of violent protests which brought down his short-lived government, and not only questioned his competence but threw into doubt his plans for privatisation heand coolish relations with Pyongyang. Speak of short sightedness, well, Lee takes the cake! With Lee gone from the scene, the GNP still retains a majority in parliament, and has the dictator Park Chung Hee's daughter Madame Park ready to take charge of the party and the government. She's not faded lily, she. She's for stronger ties with Washington, but she won't eat US beef! and what's more, she's already gone to meet Kim Chong-il in Pyongyang, and thus will take a more nuanced approached to North Korea than the late, but not lamented Lee Myung-bak.