But the botched evacuation? From the info on AM news, it sounded like directions from shore weren't all that assuring. He was concerned about an order to evacuate which would cause death if the passengers didn't have survival gear and weren't picked up quickly in the frigid water. It sounded like the ship tilted so much that using lifeboats wouldn't get everyone off.
Evacuations of ships are tricky. There will be panic and loss of life in most cases. Otherwise, people would not have been stuck on those cruise ships that stopped functioning.
I'll be one of those reserving judgement until we know what caused the disaster and how quickly and dramatically that ship tilted and started sinking.
The writer relates this accident to our own “leadership”.
Think back to Benghazi, a classic modern case of a captain and his crew abandoning ship with passengers trapped on board. Captain Lee of the Sewol was indeed just an ordinary man, though one lacking the character his passengers and their families had the right to expect of him. Captain Obama, by contrast, was the nominal “leader of the free world,” and did not even face any personal risk in choosing his dishonor. And yet what were the consequences? Investigations, hearings, softball interviews — where is the cold disgust that ought to greet Barack Obama and his Benghazi first mate Hillary Clinton any time they have the gall to show their mugs in public? Captain Lee will never again have command of so much as a tugboat, and appears in public wearing a hood to hide his disgrace. (Hence he deserves our pity.) Captain Obama remains the darling of the American press, and was re-elected two months after his most exposed moment of consciencelessness, while Clinton remains the odds-on favorite to become the titular head of the most powerful ruling faction on the planet in 2016. (Hence they deserve none.)