Yet none of this should give the impression Kim wasn’t as great a thinker as Rodin ever thought of chiseling. By the time he graduated from college he had authored over 1,500 books. Presumably these tomes were in Korean, a language so notoriously difficult to learn that even the Chinese avoid it.

Kim also had a musical bent and whipped up six operas. According to the Official State Biography these were “better than any in the history of music.” What a laugh! As if music even had a history before Dear Leader came along to illuminate it!

Never one to mooch the spotlight, Kim mentored talent wherever he could find it. Sometimes he found it in North Korea, sometimes not. Can Dear Leader be blamed for anything but overzealous passion when he kidnapped South Korean film director Shin Sang-ok to craft a film? Apparently Dear Leader’s vision was for a Godzilla of his very own to make his people proud. (He could just as well have claimed credit for the original version since the Japanese have been trying to deny their responsibility for the past fifty-seven years.)

Kim also had time to set the pace in other fields, notably fashion. While creating a Nehru-type trend with his matching leisure suits and Jackie Kennedy-esque goggle shades, Dear Leader refused to settle for style over substance. Oh no, not Kim.

To beautify the Korean capital he helped all of the handicapped and height-challenged denizens. Evidently he announced a wonder drug to make people taller, administered to anyone who applied in person. When they showed up, Dear Leader sent his diminutive minions off to uninhabited islands so that their genes were prevented from mixing with the “quality stock” of slightly taller North Koreans. That was ol’ DL for you—always thinking of the greater good.

I really will miss this fellow. Almost all politicians are corrupt, so it was nice to see someone who could still do it with panache. Yes, the North Koreans have been in dire straits for years. Yet at least they are not being systematically dispossessed from their homeland and invaded by inassimilables who hate them and their culture. Plus, their dictatorship had good parades.

For those who would point out that this essay’s title is the word for “goodbye” in Japanese not Korean, you simply don’t get it. Dear Leader would have understood…after all, he reportedly spoke 12 languages.

So farewell, Kim. You might have been a bastard, but you were my kind of bastard—one who always made me laugh. The ones we have here only make me weep.