Korea’s presidents may believe it grossly unfair that people tend to assess their performances by the number of scandals involving their families and close associates instead of their positive achievements in domestic and external affairs.

President Lee Myung-bak’s approval rating now hovers around the 30 percent mark, the average figure of his predecessors in the final year of their five-year tenures. Any improprieties that are exposed in the months to come ― or the lack of them ― will mean he is considered a worse or better president than his four predecessors.

When Lee gave his New Year TV address Monday morning, the media paid more attention to his apologetic remarks about the graft cases involving his close aides and relatives that were uncovered last year, and his pledge of extra efforts “to maintain strict control of my surroundings and myself” than to his comments on other state affairs. They recalled the president’s famous statement at the time of his inauguration that “there will be no misdeeds around me during my tenure.”

The arrests of his press secretary and culture-tourism-sports minister appointee last year on corruption charges and a few of the first lady’s relatives for influence peddling have quashed much of the credibility in the president’s assurances. On top of these, a secretary of Rep. Lee Sang-deuk, the president’s elder brother, is under arrest on suspicion of taking hundreds of millions of won in bribes from businesspeople.

Even more damaging was the disclosure of the president’s clandestine purchase of a property in suburban Seoul to build his private residence. Its inappropriately large size, the use of his son’s name for the purchase, and the reporting of an unrealistic price to the authorities raised a flurry of criticism despite the insistence that the president was unaware of the deal. The episode is believed to have cost a significant number of votes for the ruling party candidate in the Seoul mayoral by-election in October.

In his New Year address, the president assiduously illustrated what the nation achieved under his stewardship during the past year, including $1 trillion in external trade, Korea’s fastest recovery among world nations from four years of global economic crisis and the solidifying of peace regime in Northeast Asia through ceaseless summit-level diplomacy with regional powers. He then enumerated wide-ranging welfare, employment, education and sustainable growth projects implemented last year and planned for this year.

As the president tried to cover all aspects of the administration in the given time, he rather lost focus in the state-of-the-nation address. Facing the crucial parliamentary and presidential elections in the same year for the first time in 20 years, he only briefly mentioned the government’s “historical responsibility to fairly manage” the polls, and exhorted people’s cooperation in preventing consumptive political conflicts and disputes.

Regrettably, the president’s monologue from his office again exposed the Lee administration’s public communication problem. He used the kindest and humblest expressions in his address, but it was appreciated by only a limited audience sitting before monitors on Monday morning. The nation’s security, economic and political circumstances at the start of a year with extreme uncertainties warranted a candid presidential press conference to address the people’s apprehensions and even suspicions. He had his last press conference on April 1, 2011 to explain the cancellation of an international airport project in the southeast.

To be fair, Lee Myung-bak still compares favorably with presidents Roh Moo-hyun, Kim Dae-jung, Kim Young-sam and Roh Tae-woo in terms of family-level improprieties. He turned the major part of his personal assets into a scholarship foundation and at least his immediate family members have not come under allegations of misdeeds. His brother Sang-deuk has yet to be linked to the wrongdoings of his secretaries.

People are eager to have their president finish his term without tarnishing the office with corruption. Lee would want to enter some accounts of remarkable economic and social accomplishments in his name in the annals of the republic, but it is certainly more desirable that he will be remembered as the first president whose entire family was spared from the scrutiny of the law throughout his five years in the Blue House.