Flash! From Liz Smith | 08/06/2009 12:45 pm

LIZ SMITH FLASH! Strictly an Opinion on the Ling/Lee Rescue

While most of the world rejoiced that Bill Clinton and Al Gore and so many other dedicated people helped secure the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee from North Korea, I see my former newspaper the New York Post took an opposite stance. "Bill’s H-wood Blockbuster" they headline, writing that the "Homecoming Drama Is All About Bubba." (Well, I do believe the North Koreans demanded the presence of President Clinton as a prelude to letting these girls escape a dozen years of hard labor. Who should have gone instead, Rush Limbaugh?)

I enjoyed the ridiculous criticism against mogul Steve Bing, who donated his jet and paid the fuel bill, and the fact that the enterprise "had Hollywood written all over it." The plane landed at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank for the girls to be reunited with their families. Maybe it should have gone someplace else less convenient to all concerned.

I love it that the Post dumps on Hollywood as if their owner Rupert Murdoch doesn’t own a lavish house there and he is invited and goes to most of the big La La Land galas and parties. He also owns a successful movie production company. Criticism that the return of Ling and Lee was partly orchestrated by the Rogers and Cowan PR Firm seems to fly in the face of Fox’s own dedicated PR mechanism. The company is repped by the greatest PR man in New York history (Howard Rubenstein) with all the benefits that engenders.

Talk about the mote in somebody’s eye! So you don’t like Bill Clinton and his Hollywood pals. Your own Hollywood and PR pals are preferable. And who have they saved from 12 years of hard labor lately?

170 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Well Carolyn…you got that one right! "Calvary" had MUCH more to do with their safe return than any cavlary did!

By Kelly In Texas on 08/08/2009 1:33 pm

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Fox and the Post fail to mention that 12 yrs in a North Korean hard labor camp is a death sentence. Prisoners are starved and tortured.

This article will just break your heart:

The Washington Post article cites a new report from the Korean Bar Association, which estimates that 200,000 political prisoners work in North Korean labor camps on “a diet of mostly corn and salt.” These prisoners “lose their teeth, their gums turn black, their bones weaken and, as they age, they hunch over at the waist. Most work 12- to 15-hour days until they die of malnutrition-related illnesses, usually around the age of 50. Allowed just one set of clothes, they live and die in rags, without soap, socks, underclothes or sanitary napkins.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR200907…

http://frontpagemagazine.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35694

I am so proud of the Clinton’s, Obama and Gore. They all handled it perfectly. Hillary especially - very cool of her to step aside and let it happen the way it did. Obama also managed the crisis with class and dignity. And of course Lisa and Euna and their families were terrific. Lisa Ling came out immediately after the guilty verdict and said that they apologized for crossing the border that they did not intend to do so. Thank goodness for the end of Bush’s cowboy diplomacy. I have no doubt that they would have died in prison if the Republicans were in power right now.

Last night’s Daily Show said it best - The Big Dog is Back!!

Well worth a viewing on Hulu or Comedy Central.

By Jenny Jenny on 08/06/2009 1:59 pm

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Jenny, I share your pride in our "new day" in diplomacy and you said it all so well. I had tears in my eyes and hope in my heart when I saw them land on American soil. And, Jon Stewart was a hoot as usual and "dead on".

By Agyness O on 08/06/2009 5:59 pm

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Liz, not you too! I wrote Lindsey Graham to ask him to reconsider referring to Ling and Lee as "young ladies," which he calls them condescendingly, as if they were Jane Austen characters if need of rescuing from a garden party rather than professional American journalists working in our best tradition of shining light on dictatorship and tyranny. Let’s call them what they are—women and journalists! Love you, Liz, you, and the longevity of the career you have built, are inspirational to me.

By Ruth M on 08/06/2009 2:09 pm

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I blame N Korea’s ruler for this one. He wanted Bill Clinton, well he got him to come and we got the two journalists back. Oh HUM>

By Beth Cornell on 08/06/2009 2:12 pm

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Does anyone have a link to the "actual" story of what happened with these two reporters that got them picked up by the North Koreans? Not partisan spin or personal opinions, but the actual story?

I am really torn on this issue because I keep hearing conflicting information about why they were there and what they were doing. And given this is a topic of discussion among my circle of friends, I don’t want to sound uninformed. I’ve search everywhere online and can’t find just the facts of the case.

Anyone have any ideas?

By Belinda Joy on 08/06/2009 3:39 pm

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Belinda Joy, There’s not much information. However, this is all I was able to find.

http:/www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/world/asia/06korea.html?8au&emc=au

By L. C. on 08/06/2009 3:54 pm

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www.onenewsnow.com/Security/Default.aspx?id=559370

Belinda Joy check this out.

By L. C. on 08/06/2009 4:22 pm

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Thanks L.C.

This article may not have answered my questions in regard to what really happened as it relates to their arrest/detainment, but it offered up a ton of info I didn’t know.

I think of myself as a well informed woman, yet I am learning every week one thing after another about the Bush administration I never knew. I had no idea Bush had turned down talks with North Korea. This is news to me and I’m embarrassed to admit that. So this is what my friends have been talking about in regard to Bush’s "I don’t negotiate with terrorist" line.

By Belinda Joy on 08/06/2009 6:22 pm

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Yes, Belinda, and more information will come out in the next few years, I imagine, that will reveal how much information was not relayed to the American public by the Bush PR process. If you read the websites of European newspapers, you will get a totally different perspective on the news.

I find it fascinating that every time the new organizations in this country talk about North Korean, we are shown old file photos of the "war machine" of the North Koreans. We are being influenced in our opinions not only by words but by repeated images. In the future, just watch the film footage. It’s the same footage that has been used for several years now. I’m beginning to recognize some of the individuals marching in the film, because I have seen it so many, many times. We are being influenced non-verbally.

And, please, don’t anyone reply that that’s the only film footage the news organizations have. I imagine not!

By Suzanne Frazier on 08/07/2009 10:07 am

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They were in China working on a story on human trafficking although of course no one has made note of the fact that the only trafficking possible would involve China and they were in a disputed border region which they shouldn’t have been in. No doubt the story about the story they were working on will become as convoluted as the story about their arrest. If anyone should have protested, it should have been the Chinese although of course no one has made note of that either. The Chinese apparently didn’t care for the story they were working on any more than the North Koreans did.

At no point were they in a labor camp or even a prison. They were housed, as opposed to held, in a private home and apparently North Korea used them the way we used them. As pawns in a "pr coup."

By Baby Snooks on 08/06/2009 4:32 pm

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The young women said they were fed rice with rocks in the dish. This happens in a " private home"? And you became an authority on their captivity, what they experienced…. how? I missed that.

By Maggie W on 08/06/2009 4:54 pm