[Opinion] Roh’s Advisors

Having worked as the U.S. Secretary of Defense and White House Chief of Staff in the mid-1970’s under President Gerald Ford’s administration, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s “Rumsfeld＇s Rule” is the rule for advisors. The first rule states: “If you don’t have the courage to state your views directly to the point of badmouthing the president, you should resign immediately.” Listed like proverbs, his rules gained from serving as a presidential advisor ring true. “Be diligent”; “Don’t divide the world into friends and enemies”; “Deliver the bad news to the president”….

On the matter of truthful advice, the advisors of President Roh Moo-hyun are failures. They act completely opposite to the “Rumsfeld rule.” While it is not enough even to give truthful advice, these advisors are singing praises like “Park Chung-hee was a high school principal, President Roh is like a college president”; “The president is living in the 21st Century, the people in the authoritarian era”; and “The country is a rock of stability.” Strictly speaking, Presidential advisors are all failing in their duties.

President Roh’s responsibility is even greater. On last year’s political situation of “coalition government,” when advisors said that he was out of step with public opinion, the president was irritated, saying that “you don’t know what I’m aiming at.” During the start of his presidency, he embarrassed the few advisors who stated their views directly that “you would think that because you came from a good college, but…” When this was repeated, the advisors learned to keep their mouths shut. But when President Roh distributed written orders to the new presidential advisors, he drew the line by saying that “the common saying that advisors should be the ears of the president and have a lot of contacts in order to state their views directly is out of sync with the mass media era, which is flooded with information.”

Secretly, President Roh seems to have the confidence that he is always in touch with public opinion and information through the Internet. But the Internet era requires even more checks and verification. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which boasts an annual 2.5 billion page views, announced at the end of last year that it will perform a thorough check of the information listed on its site for precisely this reason. It is not enough to have the resources, but to use them wisely. Advisors that pander and kowtow to the president will only distort information and harm the president’s chances to assess the situation appropriately.