***UPDATE — 3:53 pm: He did it. Ling and Lee are free! Bill Clinton is the fucking MAN.
I knew it. Somehow, on some deep, subconscious level, I knew that it would take Bill Clinton to put the smackdown on this. It’s like that episode of Family Guy where Death tells Peter what he has to do in order to save his own life:
Death: You gotta kill the kids from Dawson’s Creek
Peter: I knew it! As soon as that show came on the air I said, “I’m gonna be the one who has to kill ‘em.”
Lois: It’s true, he really said that.
What am I talking about, you ask? Bill Clinton recently arrived in North Korea to secure the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two American journalists who have been detained there since March and who were sentenced to 12 years hard labor in June.
Clinton is only the 2nd US President to visit the country: Jimmy Carter was there in 1994. The last time any American diplomat or official met with Kim Jong-Il was in 2000, when Madeleine Albright went to North Korea with then-President Clinton’s blessing. Interestingly, Hillary Clinton has been working with North Korea to negotiate the journalists’ release, however, relations have recently begun to deteriorate into a fit of political name calling and ill humor.
God damn. I hope he can charm the pants off their government, or else he’s going to have to resort to Plan B: have sex with every woman in the country until Kim Jong Il’s regime is effectively… doggystyled into submission. Yeah! That’s it.
I love you Bill Clinton. Go get ‘em.
