How Low Can You Go?

Character assassination is the most effective way to kill someone, especially if you have the national media at your disposal. It is also the easiest way to kill a person. There is even no need for C4. Section 302 of the Penal code can’t prosecute character assassins. To assassinate characters is now even easier with the advent of technology. Images can be altered, doctored to fit the assassins’ needs. News can be spread across the globe in a matter of seconds.

Zaid Ibrahim is not the first victim of such dirty tactics and he won’t be the last. Everyone has some skeletons in the closet and it can be used by your enemies (or even friends) at any time convenient to them.

So he is an alcoholic? I doubt he is. He is probably a regular consumer of alcoholic beverages, which does not necessarily make him an alcoholic. So he says he has repented. Who are we to judge whether he’s telling the truth or was he merely making a political statement. Maybe it’s best we give him the benefit of the doubt. We should give everyone the benefit of the doubt, including BN politicians.

Morals?

If Zaid’s past drinking habit is such an issue, what about Chua Soi Lek’s admission of guilt? No one is criticising MCA for allowing such a person to lead them. We do not want a so-called homo to be a minister but we are okay with a person caught on camera having sex with someone who is not his wife being considered to be a minister? We are okay with having an ambassador who is fond of pinching ladies’ buttocks? We do not prosecute a chief minister who was caught remitting millions of ringgit to the UK via a money changer. Detaining people without trial is definitely morally wrong but the BN government is defending the existence of ISA. What about taking a second wife without the consent of the first? Isn’t money politics immoral? But yet we have a convicted money politician in the state assembly!

Nobody is perfect. If we look hard enough, we would probably find hard evidence of a lot of current (and past) cabinet members who are regular drinkers, regular womanisers and are frequent visitors of gambling establishments. Are the UMNO/BN supporters so sin-free to pass judgement on Zaid?

Mengetuk dulang, paku serpih …