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| Left: Rep. Kim Tae-ho with unknown woman. Right: singer Kim Jang-hun, who was at the same funeral as Kim, reportedly refused a woman's favor to take a picture with him. |
Kim Tae-ho, a lawmaker from President Park Geun-hye's Saenuri Party, is taking a public relations beating for posturing at the funeral of five firefighters who died in helicopter crash in Gwangju last week.
Kim, a veteran politician and once a prime ministerial candidate, was seen smiling and taking photos with a woman at the funeral in Samcheok, Gangwon Province, on Tuesday. The woman, whose uniform made her look smarter than she probably was, seemed happy about the Kodak moment, raising her left hand to form a "V."
The image did not go well with Twitter users ― some of them accused Kim and the woman as "psychopaths."
Taken aback by the controversy, Kim tweeted out an apology on Wednesday.
"An acquaintance asked if I could take a picture with her. I admit I shouldn't have," he wrote.
The five firefighters were returning to their Gangwon headquarters after assisting on the search for victims' bodies at the site of the sunken Sewol ferry in Jindo Island, South Jeolla Province, when their helicopter crashed in the suburbs of Gwangju.
