So it's in with the new. Former premier Frank Hsieh (
And it's out with the old. President Chen Shui-bian (
Another person Chen is accustomed to displeasing is former president Lee Teng-hui (
Unfortunately for Lee, recent local elections have gutted the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) -- of which he is the "spiritual leader" -- and the party faces oblivion at the next legislative elections courtesy of the revised electoral system.
Lee has since been trying to reorientate his TSU disciples in an effort to salvage some kind of legislative presence -- perhaps even by cleaving into the DPP and forming a new pro-Taiwan camp.
This strategy might once have had potential, but no longer. This is because while voter sympathy can follow poor luck, it rarely follows foolishness.
Call it the "Ahmadinejad moment": A public figure says something that is so offensive and ridiculous that no amount of apologizing or rationalization can undo the damage. In a liberal democracy such comments usually condemn the speaker to the political wilderness for the rest of his or her career.
The Iranian president had his when he said that Israel should be destroyed. Now Lee has come out and said something so stupid that his supporters are entitled to turn away from him forever.
Last Saturday Lee described Chen's belated move to rename state-owned businesses and state agencies to reflect their Taiwanese origin as whipping up hatred and akin to "Nazis, fascists and communists."
The standard reaction in other countries to casual references to despotism and the cheapening of human suffering is to accuse the speaker of insulting the victims of these ideologies. That has not happened in this case because Taiwan is rather too tolerant of this kind of language -- and all too ignorant of the suffering of people in other countries. The damage to Lee instead comes from the perception that he is seeking to gain by smearing the cause he has long claimed to champion.
Lee also told a Japanese-language publication that he had "declared war" on the DPP. Every now and then Lee gives an interview such as this to Japanese media and drops a few hard-edged comments to stir things up. When he did this during the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) era it was subversive because the KMT old guard detests Taiwan's Japanese legacy and the very thought of confiding in Japanese people.
When doing this today to pile scorn on the main pro-independence party, it looks like he has contempt for everyone -- including, we can assume, the ragtag ideologues and pan-blue-camp deserters who formed the TSU, and who are now so desperate for an identity that they are asking the public for suggestions on what they should call themselves.
After achieving so much and impressing so many with his masterful politicking, Lee has tried to buck his political mortality and construct a new "camp" between green and blue -- at the very moment voters have expressed deep misgivings at fringe parties.
To do all this while using the language of an ignoramus is not advocating Taiwan's interests. It is smug callousness that suggests the grand old man of Taiwanese politics has reached the end of his road.
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