Well, this happened. A CNN panel Friday spent over a minute and a half analyzing the significance of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un’s eyebrows. (RELATED: CNN Cancels Entire Sunday Morning Lineup To Cover Missing Plane)
“Situation Room” guest host Brianna Keilar posed the question during a panel discussion of the recent sanction placed on the hermit kingdom by President Obama. But what was a cerebral discussion took a sudden turn guaranteed to, ahem, raise some eyebrows.
“I want to put this question to both of you, maybe this is nothing,” she began, “but I know a lot of people have noticed that Kim Jong-Un’s appearance has altered a little bit lately. His eyebrows have become much narrower. Is there any symbolism to this change in look or is it just an aesthetic change that we shouldn’t read into?”
Forbes columnist Gordon Chang actually agreed. “Yeah this is important. Kim Jong-Un, when he took over in 2011, was actually fattened up to make himself look like his grandfather, Kim Il-Sung. And that derives a lot of legitimacy. So this eyebrow change is important.” (VIDEO: Bill Richardson: Kim Jong-Un Is ‘The Victim Of A Lot Of Bad Press’)
“It says there’s instability and uncertainty in the regime,” he continued. “The New Year’s Eve statement from North Korea actually talked about the virtues of killing North Korea’s internal enemies, almost an unprecedented statement for the Kim regime which takes the position that everybody in North Korea loves Kim Jong-Un.”
“That is some sort of message some eyebrows are sending there, Steven,” Keiler said, adding some much needed skepticism.
Former Cheney Deputy Assistant Steven Yates also agreed. “It is. But North Korea is unlike any other country on the planet. This is the most pulverized polarity anywhere in human history. So we’re left in many ways reading tea leaves and these kinds of signals. Unfortunately for the people of North Korea, there’s a lot of reality to what Gordon was talking about.”
Oh, and by the way, the panel discussion was accompanied by a hilariously ominous graphic zooming in on Kim’s eyebrows.