Back at work after being off the grid for four days, it was great to see the news of the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

The photos from Clinton’s visit struck me as being one of the most ridiculous photo-ops (since George Bush on the deck of an aircraft carrier).

Eight people looking shell shocked on the green rug, the wave mural in the background… Sheer political theater, with bad stage management.

How could this photo save face for a government that held two journalists captive? Everything about it reveals how tense, and cold the situation is. Why bother even taking this photo?

Incidentally the photo comes via the Korean News Agency which ran a story on ‘Trial of American Journalists” reporting their ‘crimes.’ I wonder if the State Department comments on, and the local media questions how KCNA frames the visit:

Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it. Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view.

Of course, we know this is the stuff of propaganda.