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Can Pak Lah Afford To Be Partisan
Against Us Wee Bloggers?
I'm taking a Tangent here of course on the matter of
the bloggers (Jeff and Rocky) vs NSTP case which is
running rabid on the Malaysian blogosphere and
apparently infecting much of the world's on-line and
traditional media.
The Tangent I'm taking is actually on this:
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/1/24/nation/16663444&sec=nation
Am I reading this right? Is Pak Lah really taking
sides here, against Jeff and Rocky, in what is
really a civil suit? I mean I know-lah that NST is
an UMNO paper and that Kalimullah is Pak Lah's chum
(due to Pak Lah mistakenly thinking that Kalimullah
helped him secure the DPM-ship - uncle Kali you sly
old manipulator you...) as well as his son-in-law
Khairy's boss and once(?) business partner, but
isn't this going a little too far?
It would be far fairer of Pak Lah if he also added a
comment in the lines of,"Traditional media also
should take responsibility of their reporting, and
responsible blogs then do have a role to play to
check the excesses of such media, especially those
with links to the establishment like the NST. Indeed
traditional media like NSTP's publications that are
linked to the ruling party must set the standard in
responsible reporting ahead of blogs as any poor
reporting risks embarassing the government."
The above line is not just more creditable for a
leader gagging for world recognition (since local
recognition is tough in the days of floods, boats,
inflation and toll hikes), it is also good politics
as:
Bloggers are voters too
Uncle Kali and gang are not really the most popular
people in Malaysia at the moment
In Acheh recently, the winner of the race for
Govenor was a surprise dark-horse ex-rebel/freedom
fighter ex-con. The reason he and his block of the
Acheh Liberation Movement (GAM) won? They printed
out and distrubuted the 'best off' news about their
block that was published in the net and blogs!
By the way, there may also be legal reasons why Pak
Lah should refrain from commenting on this matter as
the recent thorn in Dato' Rafidah's side, Michael
Backman (http://www.michaelbackman.com/) once
commented in his book...
...that (in his view) Malaysian courts are actually
quite independent (contrary to popular opinion), but
have this annoying habit of typically passing
judgement in favour of or in line with what they
percieve are the government's desires; the flip-flop
on Anwar Ibrahim's conviction and subsequent release
on appeal being the case in point.
Could Pak Lah be setting up grounds for an appeal
for this case should the NST-fellows win? Pak Lah...
I thought uncle Kali was your friend?
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