Quotations of the day

I have never seen a man who received the Nobel Peace Prize leave himself open to such harsh criticism (Rep. Park Kwan-Yong of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) on Wednesday, during a joint meeting of the party's lawmakers and the chairmen of its local chapters, when he lashed out at President Kim Dae-Jung over the ruling party's decision to "lend" three lawmakers to the United Liberal Democrats (ULD)).

For the current year of "sinsa" (gentleman in Korean), I had hoped that gentleman-like politics would hold sway, but in reality politics is being conducted by mean who are more slithery than a snake (sinsa in its original meaning) GNP spokesman Chung Chang-Hwa on Wednesday, during a joint meeting of the party lawmakers and local chapter heads.

It was a freezing atmosphere, with temperatures falling below minus 10 degrees Centigrade (ULD spokesman Byun Woong-Jin on Wednesday, describing a meeting of the party's executive council, when it dealt with the issue of party vice president Kang Chang-Hee's refusal to sign an application to register the ULD as a floor negotiating group).

No comment. The reporters had better take responsibility for generating their own news stories (Park Sang-Kil, investigation planning chief of the Prosecutor General's Office on Wednesday, saying that for now he has nothing to say about allegations that the former ruling party (predecessor of the opposition GNP) had received massive payoffs from the nation's top intelligence agency).