The US State Department sometimes — okay — frequently runs counter to common sense, logic, proportion and reality because it is primarily populated by what I term GOWPs: Guilty Overeducated White People. A velvet painting of British PM Neville Chamberlain hangs in every office, illuminated by a hidden black light, as a reminder and inspiration.

So it is, again, with another State Department Loon. This time, she’s the Number Three in charge and its senior career diplomat. From The Weekly Standard:

Wendy Sherman, undersecretary of state for political affairs at the State Department, had some rather nice things to say about the reclusive Kim Jong Il, the dictatorial leader of North Korea who died a few days ago. She had met the rogue dictator, Josh Rogin reports, when Sherman “served as State Department counselor and North Korea policy coordinator under former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, [and had] traveled to Pyongyang with Albright in 2000.”

An NPR obituary quotes the high ranking State Department official as saying that “He was smart and a quick problem-solver,” and that “[Kim Jong Il] is also witty and humorous. Our overall impression was very different from the way he was known to the outside world.”

Wendy Sherman, now the No. 3 official in the State Department, who served as counselor to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and accompanied her to North Korea, said in 2008: “He was smart, engaged, knowledgeable, self-confident, sort of the master-director of all he surveyed. He was a conceptual thinker,” Ms Sherman had said.

Let me also add, if I may, that he was kind to his cat named Class Envy, changed underwear daily, flossed when the filet mignon from the Kobe beef got caught in his upper back molar, and religiously put the toilet seat down for his nightly mistresses.

In consideration of Undersecretary of State Sherman’s loving statements, even the left-leaning Wikipedia writes:

Human rights record

See also: Human rights in North Korea

According to a 2004 Human Rights Watch report, the North Korean government under Kim was “among the world’s most repressive governments”, having up to 200,000 political prisoners according to U.S. and South Korean officials,^[49] and no freedom of the press or religion, political opposition or equal education:^[50] “Virtually every aspect of political, social, and economic life is controlled by the government.”

The Hermit Kingdom continues, now under the 27-year-old four-star general Kim Jong-un. Up to and until other military forces intercede.

Eight million North Koreans still struggle to overcome starvation every winter. North Korea can’t even produce window glass that isn’t flawed, pebbled and distorted. North Korea is, at its base, a suicidal and purposely-isolationist country that impedes commerce in Asian markets.

And why the massive disparity between North and South Koreas?

The clear answer: leadership, anyone?

Wendy Sherman, at least you don’t disappoint; you loyally continue the US State Department meme of tinfoil caps and beautifully-iced shrimp at evening DC parties.

BZ