Pyongyang - Putting a good face on rejection can be difficult. The communist state of North Korea seems to spending most of its time these days doing so.
The wounds are still deep from the refusal by the United States for proposed bilateral talks about the proliferation of nuclear technology in the DPRK a week and a half ago. Though North Korea insists that is was not trying to "rebound" this week when it asked oft-maligned singer Ashless Simpson out on a date.
"We were frankly disappointed at the United States' rejection of bilateral talks last week, but like any other great nation we will persevere and continue to chase our dreams," read a statement from the official website of the DPRK. The explanation continued saying, "Sure, when we heard the news on Tuesday from Condi Rice we locked ourselves in a dark room with a gallon of rocky road ice cream, but it was Carb Smart, and we haven't had any other ‘slipups' since."
"This whole Ashlee Simpson thing was just a diversion," an unnamed party source was quoted as saying. "We felt that this would be perfect timing. We were both coming off of really big problems lately, the DPRK is trying to shake off the stigma that we are ‘gay', and Ashlee Simpson, well I'm sure that after the Orange Bowl she deals with her own issues when she wakes up each morning."
The point, according to the source, was that North Korea felt like they would have had many personal issues in common. Not to mention that intelligence officials inside of the North Korean government had hard evidence that Simpson had an extra invite to this year's Academy Awards. Had the first few dates gone well, "who knows" says the source "we could have scored seats."
After the date plans fell through though North Korea moved quick to spin the unfulfilled match-up. "Because the Ashlee Simpson insisted on a hostile policy toward the DPRK and refused to ‘co-exist' with the DPRK and persisted to switch over the DPRK's regime, the DPRK has no justification for asking Mrs. Simpson out anymore," a Pyongyang official as saying.
Word from the Ashlee Simpson camp was somewhat muted on the subject this week. Simpson's representative said that "Ashlee's schedule does not permit for social functions at this time. She is currently working very hard and getting ready for a tour of North American and Canada."
But word from those that are close to the singer cited a different explanation. "Ashlee can't stand North Korea. In fact she has a problem with all ‘North's'. I think something happened to her on a family trip to North Dakota or something. I mean, it's like bring up Bismark and she vomits."
Preferring not to use the label "winner" or "loser" in this situation, the DPRK simply calls it "unfortunate" smirking, "she don't know what she's missing."
