BagNews Archives About Staff BagNews is a progressive site dedicated to visual politics and the analysis of news images.
Saturday, May 18, 2013

Twitter

@bagnewsnotes »
Advertisement

August 5, 2009

Return of the Diplomats

By Michael Shaw

Clinton-Kim-North-Korea.jpg

Hands down, this photo earns its place in the Obama Administration’s Top 10 pix.

I’m interested in your take on the players and that setting –”stormy” and “crashing” being apt symbols for the Kim Jong-Il regime. What makes the image so profound however, is the visual sense Clinton pulled off a “summit on the fly.” Of course, Kim had his own agenda for the photo op, using the opportunity to try and score some legitimacy. And Clinton wasn’t exactly in town for chit-chat.

Christopher Hill Seoul.jpg

Still, however, when you compare the image up top with a.) years of zero contact and world-wide estrangement spawned by the “Axis of Neocons,” and then b.) more years of regular, but rather painful airport photos of Bush N. Korea envoy Chris Hill, mostly flying in and out of South Korea empty-handed, the Clinton photo serves as the exclamation point on a profound but rather simple concept being transfused into Washington since the inauguration.

It’s called “engagement.”

(image 1: A.P. via Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service/Tokyo. caption: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, seated left, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, seated right, in Pyonggyang, North Korea, on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009. Third from left, back row, is former White House chief of staff John Podesta, others are unidentified. Former US President Bill Clinton met Tuesday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on the first day of a surprise visit to Pyongyang, holding “exhaustive” talks that covered a wide range of topics, state-run media said. image 2: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images. caption: US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill talks to reporters upon his arrival at the Incheon international airport, west of Seoul on December 6, 2008. Hill arrived in Seoul for consultations before an expected new round of six-nation talks in Beijing on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.)

« Prev

Next »

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p00e5523476cc8834 DennisQ

    There’s a cycle to American politics, alternately liberal and conservative. Conservative government was on its way out when Bush exploited September 11th to restore it. However, his final years were one failure after another. He didn’t get anything right.
    Obama seemed to have come out of nowhere because he was the only true liberal running. His unbroken string of successes reflects the actual spirit of the times. People didn’t want conservative government; Bush imposed it on an unwilling electorate.
    Obama seems to have pulled off a master stroke in winning the release of the two journalists, but he really hasn’t. Even Kim Il Jong is fed up with Big Bad Stupid America. (There’s that word again. We should start calling it the S-word.)

  • elfpix

    Well, one thing’s for sure now. We have first hand knowledge of just how enfeebled Kim Jong Il is by his disease.
    It’s just as well the Mr. Gore sent Mr. Clinton to deal with this. If only the press would stop pretending that Mr. Obama did the sending.

  • Books Alive

    This is the first that I’ve seen the dramatic background in color – previous stories focused on the grim countenances of Clinton and Kim. Looking closely, the waves are crashing on rocks, with seabirds flying up. Since we haven’t seen diplomacy in action with North Korea for many years, who knows how long this room has languished, waiting for its moment to make an impact. The floral-patterned carpet is soothing and tempers the power of the ocean waves, in my opinion. Noticing necktie colors, President Clinton’s is the only bright one while the group of advisors all wear gray or black tones.
    Having just finished reading the biography of Mao Tse-tung by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, which explains the history of Chinese use of Korea as a foil or lever with Russia, Kim Jong Il must have been eager for the opportunity to have this opportunity to show (and thus document) his power by means of the successful negotiation.

  • Tena

    “It’s called “engagement.”
    Didn’t take much, either.
    The twisted little shit, Jong-Il, is an attention junkie. So talk to him already – it keeps him from doing crazy things, rather like that other attention junkie, Mohamar Ghadaffi, whom we once feared quite a bit and it snow de-fanged.

  • jean

    Whoa, MIB III I do believe. Also the perfect placement of President Clinton and Kim Jong Il on the flowers, magnolias, I think. The young lady in the white jacket destroys the symmetry of the picture as does Jong Il. I always wonder when I see images like this: there are so many things in them that are familiar to us, that we see in OUR context, but were put there or staged there in THEIRS. And only a very few of us who live in or study that culture really know what is going on.

  • grrljock

    I was waiting for this photo to appear on this blog. My first thought on seeing this is how typically Asian it is (background: I’m Indonesian): the formal arrangement, the solemn faces, and the decor. Interesting to see the 2 seated leaders are placed in the flowers of the rug. And yes, Clinton was the only man wearing a bright blue tie (as in Democratic blue?). And the only woman wore a white jacket.
    Not sure that anything else can be said about the background (huge painting or mural?). It sure matches the bombast of the regime.

  • yg

    i had wonder if china was a factor in the negotiations, if they applied any leverage. china owes clinton a favor or two.

  • yg

    is there a mrs. kim jong il?

  • http://inconsequentiallogic.blogspot.com Roschelle

    Are we sure that’s not a cardboard cut out of Kim?

Recent Comments

Popular Topics

More topics »

Popular Entries


Archives

Recent Entries