Buh-bye, Dear Leader

 

From which of these "Dear Leaders" would you buy a used car? Right. I'd pass on both, too. The son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-un (pictured at right), makes even Scrooge look like Santa Claus. Exuding warmth is clearly not a hereditary trait. I generally avoid speaking ill of the dead. But in the case of Kim Jong-Il, 69, who died from heart failure over the weekend, I hope a special place has been reserved in Hell for him. Per New York magazine, "A wearer of four-inch lifts in his shoes, [Kim Jong-Il] reportedly gathered the shortest people in Pyongyang with the promise of a wonder drug, and then exiled them to uninhabited islands to die." Worst, as National Journal writer Michael Hirsh has noted, "North Korea's regime has come the closest of any society to what Orwell called, in 1984, the literal inability to conceive an unorthodox thought. Good riddance. Let's hope that the new Dear Leader is not a chip off the old block.