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There have been allegations of mysterious people around Park who controls access to her and interferes with decision-making process. There is another problem which has been brewing for some time. Apparently she kept at arm's length powerful players in S. Korea. Some of them helped her with her rise to presidency, but she did not reward them, trying to head off any outbreak of cronyism. There were a lot of unhappy folks in so-called conservative camps, and some are quietly seething in anger. Particularly in her stronghold of political support, Daegu. While many, in particular in political left, keep painting her as in cahoots with S. Korea's powerful corporations, the relation between them is not all that close, either. What I am trying to say is that she has more than usual share of political enemies expected for a politician in her position. She has a lot of enemies who are supposedly on her side. A case in point is a major daily newspaper, Chosun Ilbo. It has been at warpath with her for a few years. You know that when they run non-stop bashing of her on its front cover almost every day.

Now that this thing blows up, and nobody is on her side to cover for her. Everything lobbed at her is a direct hit. On the scale of influence-peddling corruption, this is a medium size scandal. It has become a routine that every president for last couple of decades has been all mired in huge scandals involving their family members, close associates, and cronies, when their presidency is entering its lame duck phase. The scope of scandal has been far larger in terms of people involved and amount of money exchanged. She appeared to stay clear of this unfortunate trend, but in the end, she had her own, a different kind of scandal which does not involve her own family members, relatives, or close political cronies, but some family member of a pastor with dubious character. I thought influence of that man was in the past, because he was dead long time ago, and did not realize that the influence has continued through her daughter.

The scandal has all salacious melodramatic components ideal for prime-time TV drama: Shamanistic rituals and secret powerful shaman figure behind the power. This is a classic component of Korean melodrama for women. In Korea, there is a historical melodrama set in 17th century. It is a melodramatic court intrigue among women, queen, concubines, shaman, and their family members with a king in the center. This has been made into a drama probably more than a dozen times featuring different casts. It will probably continue to be popular. People have dim view of women under shaman influence as ignorant superstitious women. Now she put herself squarely right into the setting. Actually the shamanistic undercurrent in S. Korea is relatively strong. You can even find it in Protestant Church. No shamanistic component, no success. People disparage shamanism but do not realize how much they are still part of it. A big church serves as a large modern day extended family with a patriarchal pastor on the top who draws heavily from shamanistic element to get their church going. The left is ecstatic with this unexpected bonanza. To the S. Korean left, she has been an unbreakable enemy. Whatever they threw at her did not work. It usually backfired. She was the one who could single-handedly turn around the tide of election, commanding a huge number of crowds whenever she ventures out for campaigning. She was a kind of reincarnate of her father, who may not get nice review from MSM or other Western outlet, but many view him as the architect of modern Korea, the man who lifted the country from dirt-poor place to a major industrial power. The left hates her especially because of that. Dismantling Park Chung-hee myth is their perennial wish and for that reason, she has to be destroyed. Her support also partly comes from backlash against such attempts. She is also considered a tragic heroine of sorts, who lost two parents by assassins, and had to endure a life of long exile after their death. Her whole life has some melodramatic quality who also attracts some segment of people, older ordinary women. Actually they were the one who tipped the balance on the day of presidential election in 2012. There was a dramatic late surge of older women during the election day, who voted because they cannot let “commies” take over. This is not much of an exaggeration because, at the time, the opponents were stacked with known leftwing radicals allied with pro-N. Korean party. Their election platform is "across-the-board free welfare." It was a near-miss. The opposition party these days learned to keep their head down to avoid lashing out with customary political tirade.

The trouble is that she is the lone conservative icon to check left-wing onslaught, and now she is basically blown up, with nobody left to take up the slack. In America, there are likes of Ryan, Romney, and Graham, the RINO's. They have their own conservatives in name only, with no core belief and resolve. Their selling point is that they are relatively business friendly and sometimes tough on national security. The country has been taken over quietly by vicious leftwing-racket which brings down and defang conservative figures, and institutions one by one with strong connection to N. Korea. The most dangerous man in this regard is the mayor of Seoul, a true sinister figure probably comparable to George Soros, even though his reach is confined to S. Korea.

We are now moving into an interesting phase. It will take a while for Constitutional Court to deliberate on the legality of impeachment. In the meantime, the Prime Minister serves as a care-taker of government. An unlikely turn of event for a man who was once pushed out of his career track due to his uncompromising stance on national security issues. He is an expert on leftwing pro-north organizations. So this is not really a happy outcome for the left. They thought they got rid of their archenemy and now face a man who made a career out of tracking down and prosecuting them. The man is a devout Christian with unwavering faith, but his political instinct is an open book. He is not the kind of man who could have become a president with a popular election. He has no political base. This is probably the only way for him to rise to the top, and it really did happen.