The PM suffers in stoic silence

Reading the recent spate of ‘fake news’ from the scurrilous foreign media on 1MDB and the nasty insinuations about our prime minister, my brain first responded with a few lines of Shakespeare in ‘Hamlet’:

‘Tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

It is ludicrous casting, in terms of age, to see the PM as a young tortured soul.

Tortured soul? Yes. It can’t be easy leading the nation to a BR1Mful glorious future, with multiple carping critics determined to see the bad in everything, ever ready to cast aspersions and balloons.

The lines, out of context, do apply, in terms of the PM’s possible responses to foreign media not letting up in their prevarication and character assassination – absorb the poisonous barbs and soldier on like John Wayne with Apache arrows quilling his body, or take the lying lot to court, prove his innocence and get legitimate millions in compensation.

It was soon clear the PM would take the noble high road and ignore the calumny of foreign enemies. Just water off a duck’s back. Call him what you like. It doesn’t matter as long as he has the say here.

No surprise there. The PM exhibited the same silent, stoic suffering when the first “fake news” about 1MDB broke.

Sue The Wall Street Journal was the call from sycophants and provocateurs. How can they insult our PM, and suggest he was complicit in criminal acts?

The PM was remarkable for his unruffled response, his Zen-like placidity. He was above it all.

Reminiscent of Dr Mahathir Mohamad when he was prime minister. Foreign media scolding, criticising, telling him what to do. Ignore. Just gnats buzzing.

The same restraint his supporters trumpeted in the early days of Dr M’s daily salvo of charges against the premier. His dignity would not allow him to stoop to a slanging match with Dr M.

The looming electoral contest, understandably, has spurred the PM in recent weeks to make snide remarks about geriatric politicians, and how he is righting their wrongs and neglect.

International media fuss? Pfff. What fuss? Our PM is shaking hands with the PM of Australia. So much for the Australian Broadcasting Corp and their accusatory, defamatory innuendoes.

Hence, deputy minister Jailani Johari was way out of step with his boss when he thumped his chest and blustered about the government acting against foreign media that published ‘fake news’ about 1MDB.

He has been answered by the PM’s lawyers who say there has been no instruction to initiate legal proceedings.

To compound the risibility of his empty threat, the deputy minister evoked the spectre of the infamous “certain quarters who have a political agenda,” trying to damage the prime minister’s good name ahead of the elections.

I have been a journalist for over two decades, and I am still waiting for a foreign agent from certain quarters with a political agenda to approach me with an offer to buy my opinion.

Subversive agenda?

A global cabal of foreign media outlets coordinating a campaign to besmirch our PM's good name? Funded by Malaysian billionaires maybe? Or Israelis? Or "certain quarters with a political agenda"? A subversive agenda as secret as the accounts of 1MDB?

The deputy minister must be careful. Paranoia is a mental aberration fuelled by fear and anxiety of persecution. It leads to a baseless fear that everybody is out to get you.

Of course, while paranoia is largely delusional, I cannot rule out the possibility that maybe everybody is out to get the prime minister.

Actually, if the PM is worried about the legal fees in the US (and they must be much higher than the pricey lawyers in Australia), he should give a call to his golfing buddy.

Suits against the ‘fake news’ Mafia, purveyors of liberal porn like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal? A couple of calls from US President Donald Trump to heavily-armed billionaires and our PM should have his legal fees covered.

Sue the lying buggers for millions. Then he won’t have to ask generous Saudi royalty for a loan.

My laugh for the week was MCA chucking a fit on discovering another enemy under their blanket.

Sorry, no sympathy. You chose the same political bedfellows for 60 years, and was content, even though Big Brother took up more than half the bed and snored, because you were not perched precariously on the edge of the bed like the Indian, Orang Asli and Lain-lain.

Six decades of a marriage – I guess you too old and set in your ways to get a divorce.

Be careful after the next elections, you don’t join the others on the edge of the bed. I hear there is a newly-divorced mak cik Big Brother is eyeing.

She says she wants to be a kingmaker. Big brother already has one by his side, but one that can bring chairs to the table has irresistible allure.

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THOR KAH HOONG is a veteran journalist. -Mkini