On Traveling to North Korea.

[karynnj]

139. I think the reason people are upset is that they see an articulate father grieving over his lost son

His son is portrayed as a golden boy anyone would be proud of calling their son. The father is being used at this point. Remember, though his son was arrested 17 months ago - it was just a few weeks ago he learned he was in a coma that he was completely unlikely to ever recover from even to the point of having a very marginal life. The family has had to reconcile their vision of him as a bright promising healthy 22 year old to that. I can not image the total pain that causes.

It also seems that they did not dissuade him from going. Now, unless he needed their money to pay for that trip, I suspect they might not have been able to dissuade him from going. As he was in China for his study abroad program, the effort and expense were unfortunately not too high. There were so many fascinating places - in China - that he could have gone to instead. I assume that the attraction of North Korea was that the risk made it an adventure. Remember that this was after the highly publicized seizure of two young women reporters, who were released when Bill Clinton met with Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un - who was known to be far more volatile?

I suspect that the father's anger with Obama in addition to the greater justified anger toward NK is because he is really second guessing everything HE could have done. He attacks the Obama administration for advising him to stay quiet. Yet, the story of his son's arrest and conviction were well covered - as was the story of another young man, Matt Miller. Here is a Newsweek article about him as one of three Americans then in prison published in November 2015. http://www.newsweek.com/matthew-todd-miller-speaks-about-isolation-north-korean-imprisonment-273390 There was ample coverage of the arrests, convictions and the dificulty of the US getting them released.

In November 2014, Obama sent James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, to get Bae and Miller out. This was just a few months before this man made the terrible decision to go to North Korea. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/north-korea-release-kenneth-bae-matthew-todd-miller

The father needs a scapegoat to blame -- so he goes with the tour company saying it was "safe" and the Obama administration that did not succeed in getting him out -- maybe BECAUSE he was in a coma soon after being convicted. Bill Richardson has spoken of having met with the NKs at least 20 times and getting nowhere. Emotionally, it is likely too painful to assume that he or his son had any responsibility.