Anwar's clownish rants

OVER THE TOP: His dabbling in ironic pursuits only hurts the nation's image

Why is the irony delectable? Journalists covering Anwar during his halcyon years as deputy prime minister and Umno poster boy can recall how he personally handpicked mainstream media editors whose jobs are to make him look, smell and talk like a rose at the expense of his boss, whose news coverage as prime minister was rudely pushed into the inside pages.

By Azmi Anshar, New Straits Times

TWO amazing characteristics about Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's huffs and puffs when he badmouths the Malaysian government: his singular zeal and stamina to travel all over the globe to pass out political verbiage reeking in desperation and his ability to trip over the delicious ironies to sex up his rhetoric.

Here's the first irony: there's nothing medically wrong with Anwar if he can amass considerable air mileage despite his "sympathetic" neck braces, bad back, claims of arsenic poisoning and other delightful bodily harm that he charged had come his way.

The fact that he was in Dubai spewing repetitive diatribes proves the ironies beleaguering him since the days he was a deputy prime minister with power has an extended shelf life.

Anwar embraces virtually all platforms offered to channel his verbiage: meetings with key officials, especially those sympathetic to his needs, and interviews with foreign media, all employed as a paint gun to smear his enemies.

Like the outrageous but delectable irony Anwar spewed to the Deccan Herald last week: "There is a sham democracy. The situation in Burma is better than Malaysia because Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi has better access to media than any of the opposition leaders in Malaysia..."

Why is the irony delectable? Journalists covering Anwar during his halcyon years as deputy prime minister and Umno poster boy can recall how he personally handpicked mainstream media editors whose jobs are to make him look, smell and talk like a rose at the expense of his boss, whose news coverage as prime minister was rudely pushed into the inside pages.

Basically, Anwar controlled the press then and it is the same press that he is railing against now. That's unmitigated hypocrisy.

The inability to be circumspect is Anwar's undisguised folly: in the scores of foreign sorties into cities willing to hear his over-the-top rants, he dropped a bombshell that he is still mindlessly trying to weasel out of that infamous but ludicrous declaration to the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal on Jan 26 that he supported all efforts to protect the security of the state of Israel.

What a delicious piece of ironic morsel: Anwar was part of the government that has consistently condemned Israel's oppression of Palestinians while his current Pas allies assumed the same critical anti-Israel stance, but because it was the WSJ and because it was the audience that he likes to cavort with, he makes a declaration that even Pas found poisonous to stomach.

The simple inference to all of Anwar's misadventures in ironies is that he is believably unbelievable; that his word will always be a bidirectional public relations stunt designed to appease one powerful ally while incensing another at the expense of the country's image but as long as it denigrates his true enemy.

There are far too many ironies that Mr Paradox is guilty of: hiring a politician who is contemptuous of him as Pakatan Rakyat leader as legal counsel in Sodomy II, sanctimonious tellings-off on democracy but his own Parti Keadilan Rakyat's 2010 election was in shambles are just samples.

All that boundless energy is focused only on travel and trash talk but not on governing or leading (he lords over an opposition that merely uses or humours him).

While he engages in tirades against Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the prime minister remains steadfastly focused on his momentum to deliver economic prosperity, enhance democratic initiatives and strive harder to boost domestic security -- all that Anwar is incapable of delivering, even when he was in power.

Malaysia is battling hard with other countries for a small piece of the global economic pie. In this respect, Anwar's dabbling in ironic pursuits is at best clownish, if not for the fact that it can hurt the country's reputation and competitiveness.

The bad news is that there's little anyone can do to curb his destructive streak.

The only way is to hand him a comprehensive defeat in the 13th general election, which should be the thinking of all right-thinking Malaysians.