Wendy Sherman vs. South Korea

Sherman marched right into it. At an event in Washington on Friday, the U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, held forth on the subject of the prickly relations between South Korea and Japan — and did so in a way that seemed to blame the victims in the situation.

“Nationalist feelings can still be exploited, and it’s not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy,” she lamented. “To what extent does the past limit future possibilities for cooperation? The conventional answer to that question, sadly, is a lot.”