It would be flattering to New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) to compare him to former US president Richard Nixon and underestimating him to compare him to Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo. Hou’s series of irresponsible moves — such as withholding evidence, shifting responsibility and sheltering subordinates — proves that an old dog cannot learn new tricks.
Nixon’s Watergate scandal, Arredondo’s slow response to the shooting at a Texas school last month and the “En En incident” all involved audio recordings.
Nixon wanted to destroy 18 minutes of taped evidence against him, Arredondo could not hide the 73 minutes of emergency call recordings and Hou continues to withhold 119 audio recordings made by the parents of a two-year-old boy nicknamed En En (恩恩), who became the first child in Taiwan to die from a COVID-19-related condition. An ambulance for En En arrived 81 minutes after the first call.
However, the truth will come out. As “Deep Throat” unraveled Watergate, scandal-hungry media descended like vultures, and Arredondo has been blamed for the botched response to the school shooting. Despite Hou’s efforts to cover up the recordings and evade responsibility, he could not stop concerned citizens from uncovering the truth.
In the Uvalde incident, audio recordings revealed key evidence, and Arredondo has been suspended and could be fired.
So far, Hou, a former Criminal Investigation Bureau commissioner, has withheld evidence, lambasted a whistle-blower and rubbed salt in the wounds of the child’s family. Without a shred of evidence, he has reprimanded legislators for providing evidence.
Having been educated during the Martial Law era, Hou is adept at using bureaucratic language to muddy the waters and creating cock-and-bull stories. Those who lived under the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), are familiar with this type of response. Authoritarian police became used to prevaricating.
Hou’s authoritarian mindset led to his poor response. After all, in their view, those in power do not need to account for their actions, so there is no need to prove their innocence. When whistle-blowers come forward with evidence, the powerful accuse them of sowing confusion.
Having taken a page out of his authoritarian background, Hou would be mistaken to think he can get away with following the KMT’s corrupt habit of sweeping scandals under the rug.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Rita Wang
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