The Last EmperorNYTimes.com / Magazine October 19, 2003
...{Kim} wishes to be viewed as a modern leader. He has boasted to visitors that he has three computers in his office...
...A hallmark of emperors is lavish court entertainment in the face of poverty or distress in their domains. Kim Jong Il appeared to be cut from this imperial cloth. Through the 70's and 80's, stories emerged from North Korea of wild parties Kim Jong Il held, attended by beautiful women and drunken men.....
....Accounts of this sort gave the impression, outside North Korea, that Kim Jong Il was no more competent to take charge of his homeland than Hugh Hefner. Now, however, his bacchanalian ways are being viewed from a different, subtler perspective. As anyone who has spent time with South Korean or Japanese politicians knows, boozing and womanizing are an integral part of their political culture. Your drinking buddy is your political ally. It is the equivalent, in Tokyo and Seoul, of jogging with George W. Bush. Bonds are forged; loyalties, rewarded.
