North Korean leader Kim Jong Un unwittingly set the internet on fire Thursday night when he proclaimed that US President and purported Kim BFF Donald Trump was a “mentally deranged dotard” and a “rogue and a gangster.”
Kim’s usage of the arcane vocab word prompted hundreds of thousands of people ask Google what exactly is a dotard? (for the record, it’s a pejorative term for a senile old man).
As the Sun newspaper points out, Kim’s latest viral proclamation follows a pattern of North Korean media serving up memorable – if sometimes nonsensical – soundbites in their attacks on American politicians.
And in a list dating back to the Bush Administration - when Kim Jong Un's father Kim Jong Il was still running the country - the Sun recounts some of North Korea's most memorable missives to their American “imperialist” adversaries.
Cory Gardner:
When Senator Corey Gardner called Kim a “whack job” in May, the dictator was less than pleased. State media quickly responded, saying that Gardner was “human dirt”.
A statement said: "It is a serious provocation that Gardner, like a psychopath, dare to bear the evil that dares our highest dignity.
"It is America’s misfortune that a man mixed in with human dirt like Gardner, who has lost basic judgement and body hair, could only spell misfortune for the United States."
Obama:
In 2014, North Korea branded then-US President Barack Obama a "juvenile delinquent", a "clown" and a "dirty fellow.” The North’s remarks verged on outright racism when they said Obama "still has the figure of monkey while the human race has evolved through millions of years."
KCNA added that Obama "does not even have the basic appearances of a human being" and, in a particularly vile statement, called him: "a wicked black monkey".
John Kerry:
Also in 2014, an unidentified North Korean spokesperson poetically described then-Secretary of State John Kerry a "wolf donning the mask of sheep" who had a "hideous lantern jaw.”
Hillary Clinton:
Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, was described in 2009 as "by no means intelligent" and a "funny lady".
"Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping," an unnamed North Korean source said.
Park Geun-Hye:
The reclusive regime has also made former South Korean President Park Geun-hye a popular target, alternately naming her as a "senile granny", a "tailless, old, insane bitch", and "a traitor for all times".
George W Bush:
North Korea famously labeled Bush a “hooligan” who “looked like a chicken soaked in rain.”
Dick Cheney:
The former vice president was accused of being “a most cruel monster and bloody-thirsty beast.” Yet no jokes about his aim.
Donald Rumsfeld
The North blasted Rummy, labeling him a “political dwarf” and “human scum.”
If there’s an upside to the US’s reluctance to foment regime change in the North, it’s that North Korea’s leader, and its ministry of propaganda, will probably keep churning out these colorful little nuggets.