Daily Mail: Goofy Broads In Wacky North Korean Adventure

I'm not sure the world even had a love affair with Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the Current TV journalists recently released from North Korea, but this hilariously spiteful, vituperative and innuendo-laden story in the "FeMail" section of the Mail On Sunday indicates that it's over.

The gist will be familiar to anybody who's watched a cynical 70s international thriller or two: It's all just a game. You'll be underwhelmed to learn that Kim Jong-Il planned all along to use the two women as pawns, that their hardships in captivity were less taxing than daily life for the average "free" North Korean, and that unnamed sources say this is all part of the unending war between the Clintons and the Obamas.

But there's good stuff too. Something is seriously wrong with a world where Steve Bing continues to play a major role in political intrigues. Mail reporters Sharon Churcher and Caroline Graham work overtime to make Ling's and Lee's husbands look pathetic. And in order to make the case that Laura Ling is a pitiful character stuck in the shadow of her older sister, they draw a portrait of Lisa Ling as the hottest thing to hit journalism since Woodward and Bernstein. And finally this detail, explaining why the Dear Leader rejected a visit from Al Gore and insisted on Bill Clinton only:

"He idolises the former President because he thinks he is a virile stud with influence in Hollywood."

Who doesn't? Fiction or nonfiction, the whole story is wonderfully mean-spirited. Read it all right here.