Satirists have quickly rolled out Web videos and ringtones lampooning President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and senior Cabinet members, who they accuse of being too slow, smug and out of touch in reacting to the havoc caused by Typhoon Morakot.
Ma has said it was the worst-ever typhoon to strike the nation in terms of damage after it unleashed floods and mudslides that left more than 500 people feared dead earlier this month.
In a YouTube video shown on cable news channels on Friday, the faces of the 59-year-old president and top Cabinet officials are superimposed on male strippers as they gyrate to Sorry, Sorry, a South Korean dance song.
PHOTO: AFP
The brashest moves in the video, entitled Taiwan’s Super Saviors, go to Cabinet Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan (薛香川), 65, who local media have cast as the typhoon’s principal villain. He has offered to resign but remains in his job.
Earlier this week, Hsueh ill-advisedly called a late night television talk show to justify dining out at a five-star hotel to celebrate Father’s Day on Aug. 8 as Morakot slammed into the nation.
His rant was quickly set to music — and became a hit mobile phone ringtone — with the lyrics: “Father’s Day, went home at five or six o’clock, drove car myself. Father’s Day going out — is that out of line?”
Hsueh raps the song in another YouTube video where his and Ma’s smiling faces have been placed on the bodies of disco dancers who slam hips on a neon-lit floor.
The visuals for dancing videos appeared to have been created using tools on the US parody Web site JibJab.
The dance video had been viewed more than 41,500 times within 24 hours yesterday morning, while the disco video was watched more than 47,750 times.
Ma’s approval rating fell to an all-time low of 16 percent this week as Internet users flooded the presidential office’s Web site and other online forums and blogs with complaints.
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