Were Laura Ling and Euna Lee "irresponsible"?

KOGO Radio's morning man, Chip Franklin, has been arguing with me for over a decade. I wait for his producer's call every Monday morning, never quite sure where we're going to go.

We were wrapping up today's show, talking about shows that jumped the shark, when I abruptly changed the subject to the sentencing of Euna Lee and Laura Ling overnight to 12 years of hard labor by a North Korea court.

As I tried to express my outrage at their sentencing, Chip interrupted to say that Ling and Lee were "irresponsible" and had "put 300 million people ... at risk" by daring to go anywhere near Kim Jong-Il country. I told him, in so many words, that he was an idiot.

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Here's the audio. If you are listening to my weekly podcast with Chip for the first time, be aware that he's a good guy, and even holds a few non-reprehensible viewpoints. Some listeners may be upset that we sandwiched a discussion about two journalists whose lives are in peril between discussions of "Freaks and Geeks" and "Royal Pains." But that's just the nature of the beast that is talk radio. My feeling is that we need to be talking about Laura and Euna every chance we get. (d/l mp3)

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