As the media fawn over the younger sister of North Korea’s vicious dictator, Kim Jong Un, they seem to have forgotten that men and women should be treated equally.
In this case, their worshipful praise of her now-famous “side eye” at Mike Pence, deserves true scorn; Kim Yo-Jong deserves nothing but strong rejection and ridicule. She represents all that is awful and horrific about North Korea’s brutal dictatorship, and she is complicit in murder, torture and famine her family has foisted upon the innocent people of Korea these last seven decades.
But if you listened to the media over the weekend — and particularly The New York Times — you’d think that Kim Yo-Jong is just a sweet, soft-spoken, feminine woman, charged with sitting still and being pretty — a glittering example of her home country’s sophistication.
The media is complicit in not only abrogating its duties, falling into the incredibly obvious trap of spewing the North Korean propaganda on the nation’s behalf, they are ignoring that Kim Yo-Jong is a shiny pawn: a seemingly pleasant, simple, and deceivingly innocent woman. The pretty face is a lie.
Only to the media is this high-powered dictator’s sister a fashion queen, an expert diplomat, and a charming member of royalty.
Whether it was The New York Times, Washington Post, Daily Beast et al, the media love for this “Lil Kim” was strong.
Only Buzzfeed — Buzzfeed! — recognized the evil of Kim Yo Jong, reminding readers in their infamous listicle style of her regime’s evils. Her actual job, as CNN and The Federalist contributor Mary Katharine Ham proclaimed, “is doing PR for executions and gulags.”
But the American media weren’t just fooled by one pretty face — they were fooled by an entire cheerleading squad of them, too.
Ham continued, “These cheerleaders, by the way, who we get all ‘Slay Kween Slay,’ are prisoners of their country and are trained at gunpoint to cheer. So let’s not get too excited just because we disagree with Pence on gay marriage. This is a bad, bad look and it is a propaganda victory for them.”
This squad consists of highly-vetted women who are thought to be “natural beauties,” all in their early 20s and whose families have a long-standing history of loyalty to the Kim reign and “patriotism.” They traveled to South Korea on a ship, but are staying there so they are not too exposed to South Korean culture for fear they will defect. They’ve taken a pledge to eschew talking about anything except North Korea’s athletes and how awesome their country is. And, if they don’t cheer well they might end up in a prison camp that 21 of their colleagues went to back in 2006 after having a conversation about what life was like outside of North Korea after a “university tour.” In other words, they’re slaves — prisoners in their own home nation.
One of the outlets which seemed encouraged and fascinated by the cheering squad was the American television broadcasting host of the Winter Olympics and NBC’s own Olympic commentator, Mary Carillo, who told NBC’s new host Mike Tirico that it was exciting to see the united Korean team play even though they were outmatched and defeated by Switzerland 8-0.
The New York Times headline about that game read, “United They Fall,” which continued the glowing praise of the countries coming together under the unified flag. During a rare press pool, where the North Korean (and South Korean) players were monitored for comments, one player from the DPRK stated that playing their losing game felt like “competing in heaven.” Her translator then “corrected” her statement to, “It felt like I was competing in my own country.”
Meanwhile, Politico soft-balled North Korea’s torture of an American citizen, printing the outrageous headline, “Fred Warmbier Criticizes North Korean Olympic Spirit.” Warmbier doesn’t give a rip about the country’s Olympic Spirit — he cares about about the regime murdering his son.
As Warmbier rightly noted in another interview, the North Korean participants aren’t really allowed the freedom to engage with other nations and other teams. He stated, “Their athletes are not exchanging ideas with other athletes in the Olympic Village or really participating.”
Liberty in North Korea’s Director of Research and Strategy Sokeel Park stated the main purpose of Pyongyang’s involvement in the Olympic Games, “They likely see it as an opportunity to disrupt the U.S.-South Korea alliance. It’s also a chance to launch a low-cost charm offensive aimed, not just at South Korea, but also China, Russia and the rest of the world in order to slow the momentum of building pressure and isolation that increased in 2017 as they raced forward on their nuke and missile programs.”
Sadly, Park’s statement has been proven right. The “charm offensive” from Kim Yo-Jong has worked wonders for the regime. Note to the bad guys of the world: if you want something done, send a woman to do it. Her wiles will mask the evil you are doing in plain sight.