[Editorial] Rampant Hoaxes

With the presidential election only 60 days away, the verbal attacks are becoming more vicious between the major candidates. Speeches may be the primary tools for politicians, but inappropriate words end up only affecting our sentiments, and are obstacles to a fundamental understanding of the issues.

For instance, a promise that a candidate ‘will do everything’ may as well be one that implies a candidate ‘will do everything in a lax manner,’ but it sounds very sweet to the ears of the voters. If this election is to become a truly policy-oriented one, the first key is to detach oneself from the temptation of verbal hoaxes.

In reality, there is an omen that things will flow as aforementioned. The United New Democratic Party candidate Chung Dong-young demonstrated that by attacking Grand National Party (GNP) candidate Lee Myung-bak, his archrival, by asserting that Lee’s economic perspective is, “One that advocates a cold-blooded law of the jungle capitalism for a society with 20% affluent citizens and 80% abandoned ones.”

Capitalism is the foundation of the market economy we pursue, but like everything else, it is true that capitalism has its good and bad sides. However, Chung did not elucidate which part of Lee’s economic views he was criticizing.

Chung also stipulated that the confrontation between the GNP and anti-GNP parties was a single round contest of a warring power versus a peaceful one. This can only be described as a ‘word bomb’ that shrewdly creates a dichotomy between old-era egalitarianism and cold-war notions.

Creative Korean Party candidate Moon Kook-hyun alleges that candidate Lee’s commitment is, ‘a false economy only for the privileged,’ while his own is ‘a true commitment, and for the people.’ It is not known whether there is such a thing as a true or false economy, but it is also to be wondered whether this candidate, who has neither been a government official nor ever been near the national economic decision making process, is trying to deceive the people with fancy words. Moreover, the fact that he is plausibly packaging his words with the notion of a ‘value war’ is just simply revolting.

GNP candidate Lee Myung-bak is equally disappointing. Lee responded to Chung’s allegations by saying that, “This election is a confrontation between eloquent speakers and eloquent actors.” Is Lee confronting wordplay with wordplay? Is pushing the National Assembly to back his canal project an example of eloquence? Lee is guilty of the same groundless wordplay he accuses his opponents of using.