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Johnny Neihu's News Watch: Dropping the ball on butt-kicking

Was former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) kicked in the hip, “rear,” rear end, buttocks, back or ass?

That’s the mystery I’m trying to solve, and media reports aren’t very helpful (warning: a succession of juvenile butt jokes follows).

I’m referring of course, to the latest face-losing event to beset our muddled island. On Monday the former president went to court to defend himself in a defamation case brought against him. On the way in, a kook from a fringe pro-unification group ran up to him — eluding Chen’s security detail — and managed to plant a foot on Chen’s ... on Chen’s ...

Well, we’re not sure, but it was somewhere in the vicinity of his tuckus.

Come on, guys. If we can’t even establish whether A-bian was kicked in the ass during a televised incident with several dozen witnesses present, then how are we supposed to give your reports any credibility?

According to The Associated Press (AP): “Taiwan’s former president testified Monday that he was blameless in a libel case brought against him, but first had to pass angry opponents shouting at him outside the courthouse and a man who reportedly kicked him in the rear end.”

The China Daily used the AP’s lead, while of course adding the obligatory Chinese sneer quotes around the word “president” (but not around “rear end”). The Shanghai Daily used the same lead too, without crediting the AP. So much for China’s supposed progress on intellectual property rights.

Agence France-Presse buried the buttock-shocker in its sixth paragraph, which was lame. I mean, who really cares about the defamation charge, aside from the fact that the ex-president got his posterior punted?

The wire wrote: “One man, later identified as a member of a radical pro-unification group, was arrested after allegedly kicking Chen in the rear end as he entered the courthouse, local television showed.”

Deutsche Presse-Agentur buried it too, but located the blow a bit higher: “Before the court hearing, dozens of angry opponents shouted at Chen and one managed to kick him in the back.”

Reuters apparently felt the whole keister-kicking incident was beneath them — a fatal error in news judgment, in my book.

The China Post had an interesting twist: “Former President Chen Shui-bian was unexpectedly kicked in the rear by a political extremist before entering a court as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit, and the attacker was soon arrested by the police on charges of violating statutes governing social order.”

You mean, as opposed to being kicked in the butt when he expected it?

Hmm — maybe the China Post knows something we don’t about Chen’s private life. Hold that thought.

Our very own Taipei Times skirted the butt-referencing dilemma as follows: “Lee Chin-tien (李金田), director of the Taipei City Police Department’s Zhongzheng First Precinct, said that as Chen entered the district court with security guards at 9:45am, a 65-year-old man named Su An-sheng (蘇安生) managed to get close enough to kick Chen in the hip.”

Meanwhile, the Chicom hacks over at Xinhua — recently allowed back into the country after banishment in 2005 for extreme bias — totally dropped the ball.

Their report failed to mention the gluteus maximus attack, saying only: “The scene became chaotic when Chen changed his planned route and encountered some protestors.”

Come on, Xinhua. What’s the point of letting you guys back in the country if you can’t even relish a physical assault on one of Beijing’s most reviled politicians? I expected more from you. Something along the lines of:

“Taiwan’s former ‘leader’ Chen Shui-bian was kicked in his splittist ‘ass’ today while stirring up social chaos and further damaging ties between ‘Taiwan’ and motherland compatriots, ties which can never be broken because they is [sic] thicker than ‘blood’ and represent the never-ending unity of the great and glorious Chinese race, which shall never be rent asunder despite however so many wicked, not even mentioning vile, secessionist ‘acts’ by his ‘ilk.’”


After all those euphemisms, anatomically challenged descriptions or outright omissions, the front page of the “blue and proud” United Evening News was a breath of fresh air.

They just came out and said in big characters that Chen was kicked in the pigu (屁股, “butt”), and added to the headline a gleeful graphic of a kicking foot to boot (as it were).

Now, some might say the attack on Chen is no laughing matter. In fact, the hospital said the kick fractured his tailbone — which, if true, would seem to clear up the mystery of where exactly the foot landed.

But following the WWGCS principle (What Would George Carlin — the darkly cynical US comedian now sitting on that great barstool in the sky — Say), if you can’t laugh at A-bian getting a dingle-rocking blow to the behind, what can you laugh at?

Chen reportedly plans to sue the wingnut who assaulted him. Frankly, I’m all for that — we can’t have lunatics running around using former presidents’ derrieres for field-goal kicking practice, no matter how unpopular they may be.

After all, when Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon lost the 1962 California governor’s race and famously said: “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore,” everyone knew he didn’t mean it literally.

In Taiwan, that’s obviously not so clear.



Got something to tell Johnny? Go on, get it off your chest. Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but be sure to put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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