The heavily and unsubtly scripted KBS News interview was somehow only the second-most eyebrow raising moment for the president this week. Taking the cake was the bizarre music video by the Office of the President 대통령실, apparently in lieu of a traditional Lunar New Year greeting with the president and the First Lady in traditional garb, offering pleasantries for seollal 설날.
The video opens with Yoon and his Chief of Staff Lee Gwan-seop 이관섭 비서실장 walking down a hallway, where they come upon a group of young children who kicka ball toward the president before being escorted out by the Chief of Staff. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, presidential aides appear. With arms extended, the aides serenade Yoon with an old Korean pop song, You Need Our Love 우리의 사랑이 필요한거죠, which begins with the lines: “When the burden on your shoulders feels too heavy / And you just want to stop walking and cry in the middle of the street / Hold my hand, though it is small and weak / We will caress you until you are warmer.”
Tak Hyeon-min 탁현민, the former Presidential Secretary of Protocol 의전비서관 for Moon Jae-in 문재인 who was known for his careful staging of the liberal president’s events, gave a withering assessment: “It was unlike any video I have ever seen in my life. The closest analogue might be a North Korean video showing Kim Jong Un 김정은 at a missile launch. … It was as if a sense of indescribable shame traveled through the screen to me and stuck there, and nothing I could do would get it off me. If there was a record for worst planning, staging and production before this, it’s now been broken.” (See previous coverage, “Putting on a Show for the President.”)
