As the recent focus of legislative bickering in Taiwan seems to be centered on money, the pensions of former presidents, salaries of government ministers, houses viewed by the president's family and so on, one would think that there could only be one winner.
After all, the battle is being fought between the world's once richest political party, who fled to an island with nothing -- apart from the contents of the National Palace Museum and probably China's cash reserves -- and enriched themselves at the expense of the local inhabitants over the next 50 years, and a party formed from a fledgling democracy movement made up of a few lawyers who only came into being about 20 years ago. If the Democratic Progressive Party play it right, there should only be one winner in this battle.
But casting one's mind back to last year's US presidential election, a battle on national security was fought between a decorated war hero, who signed up voluntarily to fight in an unpopular war and distinguished himself in battle and a guy who deserted from the home guard (not even the real army), and the coward won.
This just goes to show that in modern politics, with all the spin whizzing around, that you can never trust the people to make the right decision. One can only wait and hope that Taiwan's electorate can see through the blue smokescreen being created for the upcoming elections.
On a side note, in an article (Ma hits the campaign trail for KMT, Oct 23, page 3) you referred to Lien Sheng-wen (連勝文), Lien Chan's son, as a pan-blue heavyweight. I hardly think that his recent election to the Central Standing Committee immediately qualifies him for this title. Could it be he was given this description because he is the son of the recently retired KMT chairman, or the other more likely possibility is that you were referring to his well-publicized battle with his own waistline?
Henry Blackhand
Taipei
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