"The Disoriented Voyage of the Century" would be a name more apropos for President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) new book about his first 500 days in office, KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) said yesterday.
People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) also critiqued Chen's new book yesterday, comparing it to the serialized soap operas that often run in Chinese-language newspapers.
The Premier Voyage of the Century (世紀首航) is scheduled to hit bookstore shelves some time this week.
But the Presidential Office has been releasing chapters of the book since Saturday, in an effort to maximize media exposure for Chen's memoirs.
"A single chapter is released to newspapers every day. Is this a soap opera?" Soong said.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Taitung yesterday, Lien said that through the book, Chen had again demonstrated his "buck-passing expertise."
Lien said that almost everybody mentioned in the book -- including Lien himself -- gets blamed for Chen's failures.
"The presidents of other countries usually write memoirs after they have stepped down to review their achievements and mistakes and make a record for history," Lien said.
"Our president -- one and half years after his inauguration -- has written this book, which I feel describes a disoriented voyage."
Lien also took offense at the Presidential Office's tactic of releasing the book piecemeal. "He releases one chapter a day, hurting one person a day," Lien said.
The first chapter to be released criticized the KMT government for failing to hand over important national security documents during last year's transition of power.
In the chapter, Chen said former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) "had forgotten to tell him something" in preparing for his succession, and that "not a single document was left at the National Security Council after the transfer of power."
In a subsequent chapter, Chen suggests that Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) had overstepped her bounds as vice president and should better adapt to her role to improve her popularity. He writes that the position of vice president does not mean "sharing the president's power."
In another chapter, Chen says the Cabinet's attempt to postpone the 84-hour-per-fortnight workweek measure last year failed because Lien had ordered KMT lawmakers to stick to the plan. Chen writes that he was "checkmated" by Lien, as it was the KMT chairman who had proposed postponing the measure to limit the policy's impact on the industrial sector.
Lien denied yesterday that he had blocked the effort to postpone the measure. "We feel regret to hear the head of state say something as irresponsible as this during the elections," he said.
Lien said the effort to postpone the implementation of the policy failed because the DPP insisted on delaying the measure for one and a half years "for election considerations."
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