President Chen’s sophistry continues ahead of elections

Responding to a recent complaint voiced by Frank Hsieh, the presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), that his tenure as premier was too short, President Chen Shui-bian said in a TV interview, “If too short, how long should it be?”

“I feel I have the responsibility to cultivate future new leaders for the DPP by giving other party members the same experience,” President Chen explained. “This was my deliberate and painstaking effort.”

What a grand, ambitious and selfless design for the DPP, which should be applauded by all, except that the president forgot his most important job was to be president of the country, not a party member. In frequently reshuffling the Cabinet, he completely disregarded the move’s potential to seriously destabilize the country and undermine the well-being of the people as a whole.

But, this was definitely not the first time President Chen seemed to put everything else ahead of state affairs. For example, after the wedding ceremony of his daughter, he breathed a sigh of relief, saying that now he would have time to “fight for the economy.”

Later, following his son’s wedding, he uttered almost the same remarks. Taiwan can only be thankful for the fact that President Chen has only two children, otherwise, local residents would probably have to wait much longer before such a “loving and busy father” as Chen would have time to attend to important state business, which they have elected him to do.

What is really baffling to many is that the president has repeated similar statements several times, indicating he did not think there was anything wrong with them. Nor did any of his close aides have the common sense or nerve to point out the impropriety of his words.

Several more observations may be made here. First, National Taiwan University, generally acknowledged as one of the best institutions of higher learning in Taiwan, should feel deeply sorry for graduating such a muddleheaded student with no sense of logic at all.

The quality of the school’s basic training courses, therefore, should undergo thorough examination and re-examination.

Secondly, no matter how President Chen’s integrity, intellectual ability and leadership capability are being reasonably questioned, he can still command the support of roughly 40 per cent of the population as demonstrated by the rate of the total popular votes the DPP received during the last legislative election. With such a result, the president clearly believes there is no reason for him to modify his illogical, incoherent and incomprehensible behavior.

The most important goal for him in this presidential election is not to expand his party’s power base, but to consolidate the “deep green” supporters, urging them to come out to vote in unexpectedly large droves, and to decimate the strength of the “pan-blue” camp through the mistakes the Kuomintang and its allies may inadvertently make.

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