Premier Su Tseng-chang (
He's the kind of plain-spoken, down-to-earth official that puts the conniving, effeminate patricians over at the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to shame, while providing a good counterbalance to the head-in-the-clouds fanatics that exemplify parts of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Su always seemed to me to be the kind of man who, if your little blue truck got a flat tire while you were driving your spring onions to the night market, would pull over his sensible, fuel-efficient hatchback, roll up his sleeves, and man the lug wrench while you braced the jack, all the while spitting out old aphorisms like: "It ain't the heat, it's the humidity!" and "Good enough for government work!"
Meanwhile, if former KMT chairman Lien Chan (
People First Party Chairman James Soong (
And if the convoy of giant gas-guzzling SUVs carting his holiness Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) around deigned to stop, you would have to stand there bewildered as the camera crews fanned out and the Great Jogger himself descended from on high, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony blasting in the background. He would glide over to where you stood, put his arm around you and smile, while one aide placed a tire iron in his free hand as a prop and another took a photo. He would then race off after handing you a promotional pamphlet, leaving you to finish changing your tire on your own, wondering if it were all a dream.
Since I've come this far, let's make this analogy complete.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the poor hapless goofball, would probably race up on a putzy little scooter with a tiny pink half-helmet pushed way back on his head, honk his horn (I'm thinking it would play the opening notes of La Cucaracha) and shout "A-bian is here to help!" before losing his balance, falling into a ditch and breaking his arm. Then you'd have to drive him to the emergency room.
And Annette Lu (
But I'm getting off the point.
The reason I was bringing up my impression of Su was to demonstrate how hard it is to retain any respect for a local politician for long.
Just when someone particularly bright and sensible seems to have happened along, they go and bollocks everything up by saying something particularly stupid.
I used to prefer calling Su by the nickname bestowed on him in honor of his baldness -- The Electric Lightbulb -- but given the tripe he was spewing out last week, I may have to lobby the pan-greens to get that changed to The Light That Failed (I'm a big Rudyard Kipling fan).
Paraphrasing Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) -- who, although a Nobel laureate, is clearly no rocket scientist -- Su told us on Wednesday that "If you turn off your TV and stop reading the newspapers, you will discover that Taiwan is still a liveable place and full of hope," before launching into what could only be described as a soliloquy in which he pined for the good ole days of government-controlled press.
Premier Su, what the hell were you thinking?
Do you want to know what happens when people stop reading newspapers? They become debt-ridden heroin addicts with halitosis, and their toes fall off. Immediately. And there's no cure. And that's a scientific fact, proven by, like, all different kinds of university studies. So I highly recommend that you keep reading the Taipei Times, lest such an awful fate befall you.
Now having said that, I would hasten to add that I, too, utterly condemn the unsourced, biased, slapdash rumor-mongering that usually passes for journalism in this country. But the solution to that problem is not to long for a muzzled press or for a public that takes no interest in current affairs.
Taiwan's democracy is young, and so are the institutions that make up that democracy. Free media are part of those institutions, and like all of the rest, they are relative novices. The traditional role of the media in this society has been to distribute press releases. An important person says something, and the media reports it: That was how the game was played.
Now, things are different. Important people disagree with each other! Openly! It's social chaos! How are reporters supposed to know which important people to listen to? Which side of a story to report? Both sides can't be right, so most reporters solve that problem by reporting only one side. Problem solved.
I share Su's frustration with this state of affairs. But bad reporting does not justify government control of the media. Just let it go.
Which, apparently, is something the halfwits over at the Presidential Office are unable to do. Also on Wednesday, office Deputy Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) was full of piss and vinegar as he thundered against an item that showed up in the China Times, threatening legal action if the paper didn't apologize.
By making a public spectacle of a relatively minor and unimportant article, Cho ensured that everyone in the country now knows the allegations contained in the story, namely that the president tried to "blackmail" Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平).
Now, since this is supposed to have happened two years ago, and Wang has apparently moved on with life, why is it so important to the Presidential Office to challenge this story?
Who even cares whether or not it happened?
I mean, it isn't like the president has a sterling reputation at the moment. And really, the China Times story bit both ways, since what supposedly allowed the president to try and "blackmail" Wang was evidence of a scandal involving the speaker. So Chen's a thug and Wang's a crook.
So what? Most of our leaders were either or both, from dictator Chiang Kai-shek (
Look, the media will say things that the people in power don't like and that are sometimes inaccurate -- or even just plain wrong.
The only way to stop them is by having a police state. China gives a pretty good example of how to do that.
But is this what our politicians -- aside from Lien Chan -- really want Taiwan to emulate?
Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.
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