Sat, Jan 19, 2008 page8

• Johnny Neihu's NewsWatch: Election 2008: politisarcastiphilia

  • By Johnny Neihu 強尼內湖
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  WELL, THE LEGISLATIVE elections came and went and, yes, the sun still rises every morning, even if it is obscured by winter cloud.

  There was a lot of doomsaying before the elections by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) strategists and hardcore supporters. If you believed some of the advertising I discussed last week, there was every chance that supporters of a Taiwanese state such as myself and my gal Cathy Pacific would have been marched straight to a detention facility if the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) romped home.

  Back to the good old days of limb-snapping interrogations, overcrowded cells in freezing winter and suffocating summer and threats to extended family?

  Come now, my patriotic friends, this kind of thing doesn't become the KMT of the 21st century. Not even legislators like John Chiang (蔣孝嚴), who ran a campaign idolizing a man -- father Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) -- who once oversaw the extraction of information from communists, Taiwanese nationalists and innocents.

  Some, in their attempt to rationalize abject defeat, may point to the DPP increasing its percentage of the vote over the 2004 legislative elections. But I say such numerology is a waste of time when your buttcheeks are bruised blue from a royal blue kicking. Pass the ointment, would you jailer?

  Let's be candid. If it were just this election loss, the DPP would have its back against the wall. But it's more than that. With Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) stalking her party enemies and presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) signing up abysmal DPP legislative candidates for his campaign team -- think Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), who was humiliated in Taipei City's 5th district, yet still thinks he deserved to win -- the DPP isn't just standing in front of a wall.

  The DPP has been impaled against the wall, with water slowly dripping on it from above and dogs leaping from below to rip off its lam pa.

  Yes, these are low times for us true believers. But then, the other night, I had a revelation while reading a New York Times article. This piece claimed that KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is a Harvard-trained lawyer. The Australian newspaper's otherwise reliable Rowan Callick said Ma is a "US-trained lawyer of considerable charm, with an impressive [sic] track record as mayor of Taipei."

  Harvard? Apparently. Lawyer? Heh. What cases has he handled? Anybody seen his license?

  But then I corrected myself: You arrogant old fart, Johnny, not only do you dare to call into question the fact checkers at the New York Times and the Australian, you also smear Ma, a man who has dedicated his life to the betterment of his country -- whatever its title -- and the spread of good governance to all its corners.

  You can't blame Ma for the sins of the father. He's trying to restore the KMT to the glory of what it would have been if it didn't so unjustly get kicked out of China thanks to American backstabbing and Chinese Communist Party skulduggery. Ma never reveled in torture, espionage or the persecution of generations of Taiwanese and Mainlanders. Stuff happens, don't you know. Why should he be the one to clean all that dirty laundry? Eh?

  When Ma accused President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of corruption last year, it wasn't defamatory, even if he had no evidence to support his case. Give the guy a break: He's not a lawyer anyway, so what would he know? Give the guy another break: He had to neutralize that odious splitter, People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), who was ramping up the nasty language against Chen and had to be taken out.

  Soong had already caused one loss in a campaign in 2000 -- possibly 2004, too. If Ma hadn't temporarily turned deep, deeeeep blue, then his party might have ended up being run by people who think only of wealth and don't have the vision or ability to unite China under the leadership of the KMT. God forbid that this should happen!

  Ma needs all the sympathy he can get. I mean, when he also insinuated that his rival for the KMT presidential nomination, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), was on the take, he had no choice. He had to stop that Kaohsiung County redneck from leading the party down the path to hell in Lien Chan's (連戰) handbasket. And I agree that Ma's subsequent run-in with the law over corruption allegations is entirely the conspiratorial creation of an unholy DPP-Wang-prosecutor's office trinity.

  I say Ma Ying-jeou for president. Imagine how much nicer the Americans will be to us. They might even let Ma stop over at Dulles International Airport for a duty-free photo op. The media will love him, too. Think of all the money they'll save not having to locate a bloody translator. And anyway, as Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Sunday, he's a "family man with matinee-idol looks." Who can resist that, dear reader!

  Later that night, as Cathy slipped into her negligee made of recycled "Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) for president" banners, I had multiple revelations.

  Sitting on the screen in front of me was the headline for a story on Taiwan's elections from the Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia: "Taiwan rejects formal self-rule." The Sydney Morning Herald had the same story, but a different, if equally superficial, headline: "Taiwanese humiliate maverick president."

  For a moment I became weak and sneered at the screen, thinking these hack sub-editors had been snorting lines of ink out of a toner cartridge when they came up with those pearls. The fact that the piece was by a China correspondent who couldn't be bothered to leave Beijing made me even angrier.

  But, like I say, I was weak. There are good reasons for that reporter's absence. Beijing is very cold at this time of year. Why freeze your ass off traveling to the airport to come all the way to Taiwan if you don't know anyone? And what's wrong with watching coverage of the elections on CNN? Or even CCTV-9?

  Multiple revelations, my friends: The KMT deserves a chance. At least they're not scumbag communists. Charity begins at home. I'm prepared to give these guys a real shot.

  The more I reveled, the more optimistic I became. With China across the way and the DPP in the doldrums, I realized it was healthy for Taiwan for a party to have outright legislative power when it has people like martial law aficionado John Chiang, convicted criminal Chiu Yi (邱毅) and serial slanderer Diane Lee (李慶安) at the very top of the legislative pecking order. These guys get real shit done and are prepared to go to court to defend their right to do it. And doesn't Mr Chiu's post-stir hairstyle look fantastic!

  Only on Wednesday, Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) -- second on the KMT legislator-at-large list and therefore guaranteed a legislative seat -- suggested that the KMT withdraw its UN referendum proposal, even if the law does not allow for this.

  But hang on, Hung's a legislator, isn't she? She helps make laws, right? I say if you make 'em, you can break 'em. Especially if you look, sound and act like Jiang Qing (江青).

  Which is why no one can fault Legislator Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛), also guaranteed a seat at fourth on the list, for threatening to have Taiwan Post's budget slashed if the agency didn't sell a stamp over the counter that she had designed. Dammit, these bureaucrats are instruments of the people. The people elected the KMT to an absolute majority. Ergo, the KMT can tell the bureaucrats what to do. Who could possibly object to that?

  Then there's Taipei City's Justin Chou (周守訓), who said in 2004 that comparing Chen Shui-bian to Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden in campaign literature was an excellent idea. Damn right! Tell it like it is.

  And I am delighted that Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) squeaked in on the legislator-at-large list at No. 16. I don't know what I would do if I never again heard her tub-thumping lectures on sex education and the evil of erotica.

  Finally, my friends, I can tell you that with the KMT in charge of the executive and the legislature, and having brought into line prosecutors who dare cast aspersions on the character of My Main Man Ma, there would no longer be any such thing as "vote buying." Guaranteed.

  So now, when I read stuff like The Associated Press' description of Frank Hsieh as Chen Shui-bian's "nemesis," or bizarre headlines like "Taiwan nationalists in huge win" from the BBC, or AFP saying Chiang Ching-kuo is "warmly remembered as a reform-minded leader who had lived a simple life and cared for the people," or even the same article's theory that corruption didn't exist in Taiwan until Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) became president, whatever it is that the international media dish up -- I don't feel upset at all.

  Now all they have to do is report on my epiphany and what a wonderful world it would be.

  Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.
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