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02/24/2011 02:30 AM
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Report Copyright Violation | South Korea LAUGH at the joke Wolf Blitzer is [ link to www.atimes.com] Crying wolf in Pyongyang
By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - The image of CNN's Wolf Blitzer of Situation Room fame pretending to be in some kind of danger during six days in Pyongyang in December with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson would inspire derision from anyone who's visited the North Korean capital for several days of tightly monitored sightseeing.
Blitzer had to be preying on the massive ignorance of his viewers when he woke up at 4 am professing to being in a state of fear. Could it have been jetlag that accounted for his early rising after the long flights from Washington to Beijing and then on to
Pyongyang? No way. He preferred to talk about war breaking out at any moment while Richardson, a veteran of six previous trips to North Korea, negotiated with diplomats and military types over the near-crisis between North and South Korea.
This flight of fantasy became even more ludicrous as Blitzer sought to give an impression of a "rare" look at the same stuff everyone gets to see on tourist trips to Pyongyang - the Great Study Hall of the People, once described to me by a North Korean minder as "the world's biggest library", classrooms of privileged kids studying English, a look at a fruit farm, a small "factory" of some sort, the usual empty streets and avenues.
The whole program, aired for nearly an hour by CNN last weekend, reached an apotheosis of silliness on the final day on December 20 when Blitzer wanted to believe he was hearing the distant explosions of South Korean military exercises in the Yellow Sea around the island that North Koreans shelled in November. Blitzer assured viewers that the island was not all that far away - apparently not willing to reveal that it was 150 miles (231 kilometers) due south, more than a little out of earshot of the loudest blasts. Basically, Blitzer is full of shit. South Korea +10000000 |
