Barbelith Underground > Switchboard > Bill Clinton waltzes into North Korea

If you had told me earlier this morning that Lisa Ling's little sister went to North Korea, got arrested and sentenced to hard labor, and later goddam Bill Clinton shows up with his soft southern accent and comes back with her and another reporter, I would have said "I've heard of this webcomic before. He krane-kicks Kim Jong Il and backflips out of a window."

But no. Weird!

Is this a thing? Should I be impressed?

Their departure was a jubilant conclusion to a more than four-month ordeal for the women arrested near the North Korean-Chinese border in March while on a reporting trip for Current TV, the media venture founded by former Vice President Al Gore. They were sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry and engaging in “hostile acts.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had urged North Korea last month to grant them amnesty, saying they were remorseful and their families anguished.

North Korean media characterized the women’s release as proof of “humanitarian and peace-loving policy.”

Their families said they were “overjoyed” by the pardon. Lee, 36, a South Korean-born U.S. citizen, is the mother of a 4-year-old. Ling, a 32-year-old California native, is the younger sister of Lisa Ling, a correspondent for CNN as well as “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and “National Geographic Explorer.”

Clinton’s landmark trip to Pyongyang also resulted in rare talks with reclusive Kim Jong Il that state-run media described as “wide-ranging” and “exhaustive.” The meeting was Kim’s first with a prominent Western figure since reportedly suffering a stroke nearly a year ago.

While the White House emphasized the private nature of Clinton’s trip, his landmark visit to Pyongyang to free the Americans was a coup that came at a time of heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program.

It seems like such a random mix of people. I remember Lisa Ling from way back when she did Channel One News, the horrible news program broadcasted for 12 minutes a day to schools across the U.S. My school was one of them, and I remember watching Lisa Ling turn from a corporate shill to a semi-legitimate professional in the last decade. Her little sister? She gets effing arrested, sentenced to hard labor (whatever that entails, it sounds shitty) and four months later effing Bill Clinton just waltzes into North Korea and tangos out?

Well, it's not all dancing, apparently Hillary Clinton and others had been calling for their release for a while now, and it's not the first time someone had to go to North Korea and ask for people. But that's how I always picture Bill Clinton, dancing in and out of rooms.

Kim Jong Il says Clinton "courteously" relayed a message from Obama, which the White House denies. They say Clinton's visit was purely personal.

From the article:

The Obama administration has expressed a willingness to hold bilateral talks — but only within the framework of the six-nation disarmament talks in place since 2003.

So Bill Clinton and crew go there privately and the U.S. sort of negotiates while being able to deny it sent anyone there at it's bidding. Is that it? I mean, if not, what the hell is this.