An interesting item crossed NewsWatch’s desk a few days ago. I was so intrigued by it that I carefully made a space for it among the leftover food, old Acker Bilk tapes, plastic cups for betel nut spittle, overflowing ashtrays and cockroach traps before taking a closer look.
At first I thought it was some kind of invitation. The glossy, diamond-shaped red piece of paper had the variant Chinese character used for weddings known as “double happiness” (xi, 囍) in bold gold. Above and below the character were pictures of male and female imperial-era cherubs in auspicious poses (the female held a fish and the male played pipes). To the left and right were a couple of names.
Ah, yes, the names. These must have been the happy couple. On the left: a fellow by the name of Yang Shih-chiu (楊實秋), who didn’t ring a bell. For some reason, he was calling himself a “new city mayor.” That was funny — I didn’t recall anyone by that name getting elected in the last city and county elections. He must have been the groom.
And the bride? … President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Oh.
I know what you’re thinking.
But no, this was an apparent endorsement from Marky Mark Ma for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City councilor’s tilt for Taipei City mayor.
So what, I hear you groan? What could possibly be interesting about some no-name running for an election 11 months away?
The interesting thing here is that Yang, on the flip side of his little handout, features a photo of himself and the prez engaging in some “double happiness” action in a nondescript room. Relax, dear reader, the following is suitable for children.
The two men are seated. Yang is holding up a piece of paper, leaning forward and staring intently at the prez; his mouth is slightly agape, as if in the middle of saying something, or perhaps on the cusp of telling the president how he should be running the country. His stare brings to mind something Mama Neihu used to tell me years ago: Avoid people whose eye whites are visible above their irises.
As for the prez, well, he’s looking down at a small piece of paper he holds in both hands, perhaps something that Yang gave him to read. His expression is serious but accommodating, as if humoring his guest without committing himself to whatever crackpot suggestion was being put on the table.
Beneath the photo is a caption that reads “Ma Ying-jeou and Yang Shih-chiu discuss assistance for disadvantaged students at the [KMT] chairman’s office.”
Double happiness: This photograph and attendant propaganda is now part of a campaign to unseat KMT Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) in the party’s primary. And judging from the language, Marky Mark is a wholesale supporter of this effort.
You will remember, of course, that Ma’s mayoral term left some turds suspended over the heads of the Hau government, most infamously the Wenshan-Neihu MRT line and the Maokong Gondola, whose mechanical and environmental woes have been biting Hau in the ass more or less since he took office.
Now, after doing a reasonable job at deflecting attention away from tensions in his relationship with the Ingratiator-in-Chief, Hau has been rewarded by the Presidential Office with a smack in the jaw — in the form of endorsement for a usurper who points out, in red-and-black text above the photo, that Hau has the worst popularity ratings in the history of Taipei City and that he deliberately severed relations with the prez.
Ouch, ouch, ouch. If you thought next month’s by-elections might be hard for the KMT to swallow after losing all three this month, just wait until the party primaries for the year-end battles. And whatever the prospects of Councilor Yang, his dalliance with the president is, for Mayor Hau, a match made in a circle of Hell.
Then again, Ma has been getting increasingly macho since his long-time friend and personal Svengali, King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), took over as KMT secretary-general.
Case in point: On Thursday, the rag you’re now holding published an amazing photo of the prez laying down the law to the KMT Central Standing Committee at party headquarters (check it out at www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/photo/2010/01/21/2008043876).
The worn but angry look on his face, the raised and clenched fist, the glassy eyes, the stiff body posture ... add a small moustache and you’ve really got something to work with.
And there, sitting next to Ma in the frame, was King, the man who taught Karl Rove everything he needed to know about politics.
It’s hard not to imagine that King has been setting his sights on the greater picture to defend his old friend — and that includes punishing the smarmy Hau for being unhappy at the pistol-whipping he got from the media over Ma-era mistakes.
The rib-tickling angle to this nascent party squabble is that the Taipei mayor is the son of General Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) one of the KMT’s most enduring hardliners, a former armed forces chief of staff and aide to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). In order to play hardball, Ma is once again upping his strongman quotient, but this time he risks pissing off the very people most likely to respond to the message.
But don’t you start feeling for Hau, mind. He’s done himself no favors with a remarkably mediocre term as mayor (assuming that something mediocre can be remarkable), and as time goes on he more and more resembles his neighboring KMT county boss, the serial pictorial autobiographer Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋).
Chou, you will also recall, is the profoundly unpopular commissioner of Taipei County. Until a few days ago, you wouldn’t have been able to find a bookie who would give you odds on him shrugging off a capable and ambitious KMT rival at the next party primary.
Now, things seem to be changing. All of a sudden, Mayor Hau is firming as a litmus test of Ma’s ability to steer his party in the direction he wants (whatever that is), and because the good people of Taipei City would sooner elect a mentally ill donkey with swine flu and melamine poisoning than a Democratic Progressive Party candidate, the ramifications of his removal would be merely factional.
Let’s leave the bloodbath to those with bloodlust. For mine, I’m leaning toward offering my services to Chou in his attempt to ward off challengers in Taipei County Redux.
The agenda is simple:
(1) Find out what few objects or services remain legal tender when it comes to buying votes, and use them, and
(2) Change the name of the new special municipality from the idiotic Sinbei City (新北市, “New North City” or even “New Taipei”) to Hsiwei City (錫瑋市).
Yeah, I know it’s the incumbent commissioner’s name, but it’s lustrous, it has a metallic edge, and anyway, if you’re going to make an electorate in your own image, you have to go all the way.
Expect some invitations soon for a love fest between old Johnny and Commissioner (soon to be mayor) Chou. Now there’s a marriage made in a circle of Heaven.
Got something to tell Johnny? Get it off your chest: Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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