Political Bullshit

For the past two days the nation has, quite appropriately, been shocked by the Virginia Tech shooting, and has been looking for answers. Now, since I live nowhere near Virginia, and know no one who lives anywhere near Virginia, I am less interested in the shooting. It's not that I don't care; it's just that I simply don't have the time to get panicked about every school or workplace shooting in the country. But the news outlets, television, radio, print AND internet, are full of updates and recaps and theories on the student who decided that the one college experience he simply could not skip was of course, mass murder. Today, while skimming through all of these headlines, I found this.

The third paragraph grabbed my attention instantly. The president is expected to make a statement of apology at an event in Seoul Wednesday afternoon. My question is, why?

Why is the president of South Korea apologizing for the actions of one former resident, who hasn't lived in the country for fifteen years? And why does America seem to collectively think that this apology is appropriate? I mean, this is the same country which has repeatedly refused to apologize to its own citizens for slavery, a legal and government-endorsed practice of mass oppression and abuse spanning much of the nation's history.

So, we can't apologize for what our forefathers might have done, but we can certainly expect a foreign leader to apologize for what someone he has never met and is in no way linked to, other than a common birthplace, did without his knowledge. This is just one more example of the national ego which makes certain parts of the world hate America. Combine that ego with the current president, a man who should have a short yellow school bus heading his motorcade in the interest of truth in advertising laws, and it's not surprising that we are resented by people all the world over.