Asawin Suebsaeng

Interactive Writing Fellow

Asawin Suebsaeng is the interactive writing fellow at the Washington, DC, bureau of Mother Jones. He has also written for The American Prospect, the Bangkok Post, and Shoecomics.com.

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A graduate of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Penn., Asawin came back to DC with hopes of putting his flimsy Creative Writing major, student newspaper tenure, and interest in human rights and political chicanery to some use. He started cutting his teeth at F&M's student-run weekly, The College Reporter, serving as editor in chief. He has interned at The American Prospect, been a reporter for the Bangkok Post, and scribbled for ShoeComics.com. His favorite movie is either Apocalypse Now or Pirahna 3D, depending on the day or mood.

The Weirdest Thing About the North Korea Succession

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Mon Dec. 19, 2011 6:02 AM PST

Same as the old bosses.

With the death of Kim Jong Il, questions regarding succession and the North Korean power structure are front and center. It's been nearly three years since Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Il's third son, was nominated to succeed his father. On Monday, North Korea's state media referred to Kim Jong Un as the "Great Successor," and called on the people to "faithfully revere" the 20-something, Swiss-educated heir apparent who would guide them in changing "sadness to strength and courage [to] overcome [the day's] difficulties."

Kim Jong Un is the late dictator's youngest son. For a terse primer on why Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son, is not a shoo-in to become the next Supreme Leader, read the last lines of the AP obituary that ran Sunday night:

His eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, 38, is believed to have fallen out of favor with his father after he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport in 2001 saying he wanted to visit Disney's Tokyo resort. His two other sons by another woman, Kim Jong Chul and Kim Jong Un, are in their 20s. Their mother reportedly died several years ago.

Until this incident at what is now Narita International Airport, the older sibling had been expected to take the reins following Kim Jong Il's death. In the years since the 2001 micro-scandal, Kim Jong Nam has openly admitted that he is "not interested in the politics" of his country, and has immersed himself in a cushy lifestyle with two wives, a mistress, and a few kids stashed away in mainland China. It's funny to think that this despot-kin-turned-full-time-playboy (those are fairly typical of oppressive regimes) blew his chances at the big title because he wanted to lounge around a Disney tourist trap in Japan. (The faux pas seems even sillier when you factor in just how sensitive North Koreans are about anything involving the Japanese, seeing as how they haven't even started to get over the whole 35-years-of-brutal-occupation thing.)

So you can sort of thank the combined efforts of Mickey Mouse and 20th-century Japanese imperialism for ensuring the rise to power of Kim Jong Un. And thus a grad-student-aged, binge-drinking, 200-pound Kobe Bryant fan who reportedly has issues with hypertension and diabetes will likely become the next ruler of a nuclear-armed state that has one of the most appalling human rights records in the world today.

The more you learn about North Korea's totalitarian ruling family, the more they come off like a sick cross between The Godfather, Arrested Development, and certain scenes in Zoolander.

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7 Christmas Songs That Don't Suck

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Mon Dec. 19, 2011 4:00 AM PST

Mr. Claus was not about to peaceably accept the onslaught of terrible seasonal pop songs played in his honor. The cops drew the line at public urination, though.

By now, it's almost impossible to remember a time when local radio stations weren't blasting Christmas/winter/secular-Santa music 24/7. You've probably heard the holiday stylings of Mariah Carey, Wham!, Miley Cyrus, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Gene Autry enough times in the past few weeks to recall the lyrics as well as you would your mother's maiden name.

And to get you through the remainder of the holiday blitz, here are seven Christmas songs that don't in fact suck. We've got Ike & Tina Turner, John Lennon, and oddball community college students from that NBC sitcom nobody watches. In the event that you are seeking more diversity in terms of musical epochs, many apologies in advance for most of these songs being of a "classic" variety. (Kings of Leon probably could've come up with a pretty sweet contemporary Xmas jingle, but it just so happens that they find the holiday hugely "depressing.")

1. James Brown, "Please Come Home for Christmas": This 1960 blues song by Charles Brown has been covered to death: Aaron Neville, Willie Nelson, Bon Jovi, the Eagles. But the Hardest Working Man in Show Business recorded the most tastefully ragged version. (As his final act of impeccable style, the Godfather of Soul died on Christmas Day 2006.)

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

Young Adult, Cool Movie

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri Dec. 16, 2011 4:00 AM PST

Young Adult

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

94 minutes

Director Jason Reitman has a knack for wringing the captivating waggishness out of scarred and broken characters. So it makes perfect sense that his latest effort would be a comedy about despondency, isolation, and acute immaturity.

Young Adult has an eye-rolling-ly familiar premise: as screenwriter Diablo Cody told Film Journal International, it's a story about a woman who "cling[s] to deluded teenage fantasies...and is obsessed with recreating her teenage years come hell or high water." That brings us to Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), a slobbish teen-lit ghostwriter staring down the barrel of imminent middle-age who takes a break from big-city life to return to the small town she ditched nearly two decades prior. The sad, blonde, and comely Mavis tracks down an old flame—now a mellowed-out family man named Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) whom she is determined to steal for herself.

All right, so the elevator pitch for this movie isn't much. But what could have easily come off as an unofficial remake of Sweet Home Alabama is instead a savagely funny, moving dark comedy that's dripping with rich metaphor.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

GOP Debate: Threats, Delusions, and Bad Ideas

Lowlights from the final debate before the Iowa caucuses.

—By the Mother Jones news team

| Thu Dec. 15, 2011 11:21 PM PST

Wang Fengfeng/Xinhua Read on for the Mother Jones news team's instant analysis of Thursday night's GOP presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa.

Newt Gingrich's Freddie Mac Delusions

Mitt Romney Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (bottom right) and the elephant in the room. Photo courtesy of Gingrich Productions.

—By Andy Kroll

In Thursday night's Fox News debate, GOP presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich unloaded a whopper when confronted—again—about his controversial consulting gig with government housing corporation Freddie Mac in the late 1990s and 2000s.

At the debate, Gingrich dismissed his work for Freddie Mac. "I was a private citizen engaged in a business like any other business," he said. Details on his work with Freddie, however, suggest otherwise. Freddie, which was taken over by the federal government in 2008, paid Gingrich between $1.6 million and $1.8 million for consulting work. And although Gingrich has said he was paid to be a "historian" for Freddie, officials with the housing giant told Bloomberg News that Gingrich was hired, in part, to "to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company's public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it." So although Gingrich may not have technically lobbied for Freddie, he was hired to open doors in Congress for the company—and he received quite the paycheck for doing so.

Not only did Gingrich consult for Freddie, he also stood fast by its quasi-governmental status, which is anathema to many conservatives in Washington and beyond. Ex-Freddie employees told Bloomberg they didn't remember Gingrich ever voicing opposition to the company's business model or strategy. In September 2008, as both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae teetered on the brink of collapse (they were eventually taken over by the federal government), Gingrich said he had no plans to question Freddie's business model. "I was perfectly happy to not push the issue as long as they weren't failing," he explained at the time. That's a claim that could come back to haunt Newt. Here's video of it:

Mitt Romney/Flickr

Romney: Obama's Foreign Policy Is Based on Begging

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

During the Fox News Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa, on Thursday night, Mitt Romney was asked about the American spy drone that crashed in Iran nearly two weeks ago. The on-and-off 2012 GOP front-runner was also asked if the Obama administration's response to the captured drone demonstrated weakness.

"Absolutely," Romney said. He asserted that the drone incident was just one of many examples of the president handling foreign policy matters with timidity, and that Obama's lack of "strength" was "inviting war." With regards to the White House "asking" the Iranian regime to return the downed aircraft, Romney blasted the Obama administration for doing "nothing" and endorsing a "foreign policy based on [saying] 'pretty please.'"

[Read the full article]

Romney: Obama's Foreign Policy Is Based On Begging

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Thu Dec. 15, 2011 9:37 PM PST

What?

During the Fox News Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa on Thursday night, Mitt Romney was asked about the American spy drone that crashed in Iran nearly two weeks ago. The on-and-off 2012 GOP front-runner was also asked if the Obama administration's response to the captured drone demonstrated weakness.

The former Massachusetts governor had told Fox News earlier this week that, by not retrieving the US drone, President Obama was acting "extraordinarily weak and timid in a critical moment" and argued that he should have ordered American forces to "destroy it or go get it." This criticism fits perfectly with the narrative he's been attempting to spin that Barack Obama pursues a policy of "appeasing" our foreign enemies.

Of course, Obama's decision not to invade or bomb Iran in order to destroy the remains of a drone had absolutely nothing to do with being timid or weak; the decision was based on the recommendation of his entire national security team, plus the advice of top military and intelligence officials. According to the Wall Street Journal, officials weighed the options of "conducting a covert mission inside Iran to retrieve or destroy [the] stealth drone...but ultimately concluded such a secret operation wasn't worth the risk of provoking a more explosive clash with Tehran":

The officials considered various options for retrieving the wreckage of the RQ-170 drone.

Under one plan, a team would be sent to retrieve the aircraft. U.S. officials considered both sending in a team of American commandos based in Afghanistan as well as using allied agents inside Iran to hunt down the downed aircraft.

Another option would have had a team sneak in to blow up the remaining pieces of the drone. A third option would have been to destroy the wreckage with an airstrike.

However, the officials worried that any option for retrieving or destroying the drone would have risked discovery by Iran.

"No one warmed up to the option of recovering it or destroying it because of the potential it could become a larger incident," the U.S. official said. If an assault team entered the country to recover or destroy the drone, the official said, the U.S. "could be accused of an act of war" by the Iranian government.

In other words, the president made a foreign policy move based on prudence, not liberal wimpishness.

Furthermore, it might be worth asking Romney which of these two options he thinks would have a greater chance of "inviting war": A) Not listening to foreign policy hawks every once in a while, or B) ordering something that could actually be construed as a violent act of war.