Speaking of which: Recently there was a North Korean spectator worthy of our admiration at a major event — the State of the Union. The North Korean Ji Seong-ho, a defector living in South Korea.

Inexplicably, just a few weeks after the president told Seong-ho’s story, which included having his limbs run over by a train while scavenging for coal to try to feed his family, the same media who reported on his triumph are whitewashing the regime that tortured Ji’s father to death when he was caught trying to defect.

The picture of North Korean triumph is not a member of the Kim family giving our vice president “side-eye,” nor is it singing cheerleaders in the stands of the Olympics. It’s that of Ji Seong-ho holding the wooden crutches he used to escape over thousands of miles, across China and southeast Asia over his head in the US Capitol, after being honored by the president of the United States for his courage.