By I guess this is some of that new “smart diplomacy” that Hillary Clinton has been telling us about:
And Hillary Clinton thought she was having a bad day when she broke her elbow …
Today, a meeting of Asian leaders in Thailand turned into the set of “Mean Girls”: North Korea called the Secretary of State a “funny lady” who “looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping.” Ouch. To be fair, Clinton stirred it up earlier this week when she compared North Korea to “unruly teenagers.”
For the Secretary of State, this latest scrap must feel like the cherry on top of a big fat banana peel of a month. [Yahoo News]
I had to laugh at the “pensioner going shopping” insult because who could have possibly thought of that? Despite all the misery in North Korea at least someone is having fun coming up with these insults.
It is the sad reality. No mistake...
12:46 pm on July 23rd, 2009 1
How would North Koreans know what a pensioner going shopping looks like?
2:06 pm on July 23rd, 2009 2
If North Korea is modeled on the old Soviet Union, then they have pensioners.
During the Cold War, we were indoctrinated to believe all Soviet women over 30 were babushkas that looked like our urban bag ladies without the shopping cart. The propaganda videos showed them lining up outside shops with mostly empty shelves hoping to get a ration of bread and meat.
We have almost no imagery of North Koreans going through their daily route. However, I imagine that since many of them have been on starvation rations over the past decade, I don't see them being as robust as a Soviet babushka.
4:40 pm on July 23rd, 2009 3
If I was writing North Korean propaganda, I would call her "a masculine second place Monica Lewinski who would look more at home with a cigar in her mouth than anywhere else."
There is no response to something like that.
Actually, I don't know why North Korea is insulting her. They have almost the same political philosophy… big government and control of the population while maintaining an elitist lifestyle counter to what they push on the population.
5:36 pm on July 23rd, 2009 4
Here is the Spanish version, published by KCNA:
"Ella parece a veces una alumna de la primaria y otras veces, una abuela que necesita ser mantenida y no tiene otra tarea que ir al mercado."
Sorry I don't speak Spanish, so this English translation is courtesy of Google Translate:
She seems at times a primary school student and other times, a grandmother who needs to be maintained and has no job to go to market.