A lot of the grossest racism and propaganda from the West was also during his era: 18 hole-in-ones story, his portrayal in Team America, all the stories about how wacky North Korea is (source: Radio Free Asia), etc.
I'm convinced that much of that was consent manufacturing towards a future US war, since the DPRK was on the list of countries the Bush admin wanted to fuck with, I think DPRK and Iran are the only ones that haven't had a regime change since then.
