[KVOLUTION]

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In spite of his lack of dynamism, however, Lee is a man of infinite patience and goodwill. These are not insignificant virtues in the nation's politics where events are unpredictable and personalities volatile. After the dramatics of Roh's life and death, Lee's personality might suit the country far better and Korea may benefit more with him at the helm.

By Jon Huer
Korea Times Columnist

Koreans love drama, as they tend to think of their history as one continuing series of dramatic acts. One such act in the Korean Drama has just ended.

Throughout the turmoil of Roh's death and funeral that gripped the nation's heartstrings, a thought consistently occupied my mind: that of two contrasting images of Roh Moo-hyun and Lee Myung-bak. In my mind, no two images could be more contrasting and thought-provoking.

Roh's life and death represent to many, and certainly to me, an image of courage. It is no small wonder that he was called by his supporters "Roh Moo- hyun, the Fool" for his reckless courage and daring that had become his trademark, both as a politician and as a human being.

Highly charged with emotional energy and doctrinal stubbornness, he lost many elections by his sheer ``foolish'' determination not to be compromised.

Now that the shock and turmoil caused by Roh have basically calmed down, we can see clearly that the man's whole life, times and death were one continuous act of daring and courage, recklessness thrown in for good measure.

No one can say Roh's decisions, be they personal, political or administrative, were all good or wise, as many were certainly not, but no one will ever say that Roh lacked courage and daring. He commanded attention and created controversies. He was always at the center of the nation's action and thoughts.

By contrast, Lee Myung-bak, the incumbent President, is rarely anything but an image of timidity and caution, born of his long service to a tycoon as a personal assistant and tenure in the marketplace.

The Chenggaecheon renovation and the moniker ``Lee, the Bulldozer'' notwithstanding, the image that Lee commands today is that of a man who is so careful and so cautious as to seem almost over-polite in all matters.

No one will forget his ``apology'' to the nation during the anti-U.S. beef protests. No one will be able to erase his silent fear during the mad-cow noise. He missed a great chance to re-assert his presence, soon after Roh killed himself, by boldly insisting on visiting Roh's home, as the sitting President paying homage to a former president on his tragic death.

He did no such thing. He remained fearfully inactive. He sat in silent immobility of thought and action. He was all but invisible as the leader of the nation in crises. Even when North Korea's nuclear and missile tests gave him a chance to take control of Korea's stage, he was barely noticeable.

Even in death, Roh commanded attention and stirred passion. But Lee, as the sitting President with awesome power in Korea, was an invisible and unfelt commander in chief.

Commanding leaders have commanding moments. Yeltsin stood on top of a tank during a critical moment in Russia's politics. Reagan yanked the microphone cord out of the wall-plug, claming it was his because he paid for it. Roh's numerous challenges to conventional thinking, culminating in his daring jump off the cliff that defies ordinary human imagination.

By contrast, Lee appears smallish and ordinary, insignificant and fearful, in all things he does and says. Where Roh stands larger than life even in death, and Koreans love their leaders to be commanding and daring, Lee is diminished almost to the vanishing point. He looked afraid and uncertain during Roh's funeral, hardly a take-charge leader's demeanor, and Koreans, well versed in ``noonchi'' psychology, notice these things and permanently lodge them in their memory.

Both Roh and Lee are said to have come from excruciatingly poor families, and the stories of their childhood poverty are legion. But how their similar poverty-stricken background has spawned two entirely opposite careers is quite interesting, which challenges the efficacy of psychologizing.

For Roh, the poverty energized him into a fighter against what he regarded as injustice and inhumanity. For Lee, it turned him into a man determined to succeed by following convention. Roh, after years of solitary, almost monkish self-study, became an angry human-rights lawyer. Lee became a personal assistant to the Hyundai tycoon and ultimately, by showing his great sense of personal loyalty and timing, became one of the Hyundai CEO's. Roh's summit at the Korean presidency followed him almost in spite of his own sabotage against success, but Lee's as a reward for serving a master, first the tycoon and later the marketplace well.

Roh was a man, first and last, as he lived and died according to his own design of destiny and emotional dictates. To be sure, he was dangerous when he, the man, became the holder of the nation's top power. He almost ruined the time-tested and strategically critical ROK-U.S. alliance. He almost destroyed the history-honored decorum of formality and diplomacy at the Blue House as President with his thoughtless words and inconsiderate deeds.

In all this, still, he was honest and straightforward, almost to a fault, and one had to admire his courage and daring even when they threatened Korea's well-being as a whole in favor of his own personal beliefs and philosophies. His stubbornness often overshadowed the benefit intended underneath, his personal ego often hiding the urgent sense of humanity; and his rough visage and rougher language obscuring the purity of his soul that was like a child's.

Perhaps he disturbed the Korean Peninsula more than strengthened it; perhaps he harmed Korea's international image more than elevated it; perhaps he was not cut out to be the president that most Koreans expected of him as he was too inelegant and unrefined. But in all this, Roh was a man of his own mind, a master of his own destiny, and, ultimately, a dreamer of grand dreams and an author of dramatic events.

By contrast, Lee comes across as someone in a role, a function, not as a man of grand dreams or dramas. None of his image strikes us as a powerful commander in chief in a crisis, a towering captain of industry, a mover and shaker of destiny. At best, he appears to be an able administrator, a trusty steward, a competent bureaucrat, a sweet neighbor or an elder of no particularly memorable distinction. The man has lived most of his life, yet there is no defining character or moment about him as a human being or an idea that he is in charge of writing an act in Korea's history as a leading politician. The tenure of his presidency is not over yet, but any anticipation of great deeds seems unlikely.

This view of Lee creates a catastrophic contrast, perhaps unfairly, with the man who has just died. But the comparison does not improve much when contrasted with a politician who is not even in power, Park Geun-hye, who seems to be poised for her own explosive moments and memorable deeds yet to come.

By contrast, although Lee and Park are of the same political party, Park is more reminiscent of Roh than of Lee, her political fellow traveler. Oddly, no two politicians have had more different ideologies than Park, the conservative, and Roh, the radical, yet they share something in common.

Both have established an image of inner strength and dynamic political imagination and energy. The three politicians that form Korea's triumvirate, Roh, Lee and Park, determine the content of the past, present and future, respectively. Roh is in the past but we miss him already. Lee is in the present but we lament him already. Park is in the future but we can hardly wait already.

In spite of his lack of dynamism, however, Lee is a man of infinite patience and goodwill. These are not insignificant virtues in the nation's politics where events are unpredictable and personalities volatile. After the dramatics of Roh's life and death, Lee's personality might suit the country far better and Korea may benefit more with him at the helm. Often history tends to be kinder to dramatic events than to routine maintenance and, at the moment, Roh has a vast advantage over Lee in this historical contrast. But who knows? Lee might surprise us yet. Stranger things have happened in the political-historical arena before, especially in the Korean Drama. Remember the tortoise and hare race? Lee might still have the last laugh.

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