Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary "truth" commission?

Here are all of today's news items from Taiwan's three English-language papers along with excerpts where applicable. I already said many similar things in a post I wrote in the wee hours of this morning.

[All emphasis and bracketed comments mine]

Taipei Times

Blue camp stands by shooting 'report'
The report issued by the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee on Monday passed the Procedure Committee yesterday despite the former being declared unconstitutional.

The report, which says the shooting of President Chen Shui-bian "did not occur as reported," and that the election might have been manipulated as a resulted, passed the committee along party lines, but not before lawmakers from the pan-blue and pan-green camps argued over the legitimacy of the investigation committee and its report.

CIB laughs off report by committee
In addition to "suggesting" that the Legislative Yuan should recall Chen, the committee said the Control Yuan should impeach the premier and all members of the Cabinet.

The report said that the committee's investigation "showed that the assassination attempt was not an attempted suicide, not a murder and not a crime committed by a psycho."

It was not immediately clear what facts led the committee to draw these conclusions. [Hmmm. Now it's an "assassination attempt," eh? Is it "not a murder" because the victims didn't die?! Could it be that they know these things because they hired the shooter and are now hiding him?!]

Nonetheless, the committee said it had "good reason" to believe that the shooting was staged because of "human manipulation" during the investigation. It then said that insufficient evidence had been produced regarding the shooting.

To bolster its claims of "human manipulation," the report said that National Security Council Secretary-General Chiou I-jen did not give up-to-the-minute and clear information during the initial press conference after the shooting occurred.

Furthermore, the committee said, the president and vice president had disappeared for "quite a long time" after the shooting.

[Ya think maybe they could've been in the hospital?!?! Duh!]

DPP heavyweights slam March 19 committee report
High-ranking Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday blasted the investigation report released by the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee as "absurd, ridiculous and unreasonable."

[...]

"The Presidential Office feels sorry that the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee members came to such conclusions without much scientific evidence," Presidential Secretary-General Su Tseng-chang said yesterday.

Su pointed out that although the members of the investigation committee have their own professional specialties, they are not forensic experts.

"I wonder how the commission members could reach conclusions that are so absurd, ridiculous and unreasonable," Su said. [Queens of denial?]

Su stated that according to the scientific evidence discovered by forensic expert Henry Lee and the National Police Agency's Criminal Investigation Bureau, Chen and Lu were proven to be victims of an assassination attempt.

"Moreover, the Council of Grand Justices has already ruled that the 319 Truth Investigation Commission is unconstitutional, and that many operations of the commission are considered to be unlawful," Su said.

"I couldn't detect the professional training of the commission members in this investigation report, only their emotions of hatred and grievance," Su said.

Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh said that the investigation report's conclusions lacked any hard evidence to back them up, but were rather based on imaginative reasoning alone.

[...]

Meanwhile, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming denounced Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng for being so unfair that he allowed the investigation report to be listed on the legislative agenda this Thursday, ignoring legislative regulations.

Ker said that if the investigation report is to be reviewed in the legislative session tomorrow, the commission should have submitted it to the Legislative Yuan before noon Monday.

However, the investigation report was not released until Monday afternoon.

"Wang disregarded the legislative agenda and forced the procedure committee to add the investigation report to Thursday's session," Ker said.

"It is unacceptable for a legislature to review a biased investigation report that was conducted by an unconstitutional committee," Ker said.

Editorial: Illegitimacy spawns ludicrous report
Since the committee was established last October, judicial reform groups and academics have criticized the legislation that was forced through by pan-blue legislators, pointing out that some of the powers granted to the committee by the statute were unconstitutional. The constitutional interpretation by the Council of Grand Justices last month said that many articles relating to the structure of the committee were flawed and unconstitutional.

After the grand justices denied the legal status of the committee and the legitimacy of its operation, the committee members should have immediately sought to amend those articles with which the grand justices found fault. The committee could then have exercised the judicial investigative powers properly granted it by the legislature. It would then have been in a position to make a thorough investigation of an incident that shook the nation.

Given that the legislature is dominated by the pan-blue camp, passing such amendments would not have been difficult. But, incomprehensibly, the committee chose not to try to repair its legal standing. Instead, despite its illegitimacy, it went ahead and finished its "investigation report."

Taiwan News

Chen not subject to recall campaign
President Chen Shui-bian, who assumed his second term in May last year, is not subject to recall campaigns until he has served one year of his tenure, although the truth commission has suggested his removal.

Aware of the one-year protection, the opposition Kuomintang and People First Party have refrained from bold actions although they voiced respect yesterday for the commission's findings.

Ranking government and Democratic Progressive Party officials, however, blasted the panel's report as scientifically shaky and politically motivated.

[...]

Presidential Secretary-general Su Tseng-chang said the commission's conclusions were preposterous in light of its limited access to important documents and evidence.

Branding the panel a constitutional monster, the Cabinet has refused to fund the commission after seeking successfully to veto the law authorizing its creation. Citing similar concerns, the Ministry of Justice, the Criminal Investigation Bureau and other law-enforcement officers denied the commission's requests to review evidence and documents related to the shooting.

"It is unbelievable that the panel, whose legality was voided by the Council of Grand Justices, should have persisted in conducting the probe and has put forth a bunch of irresponsible conclusions and recommendations," Su said.

Seeking to defend the president, Su reiterated that Chen was the victim of the shooting, a fact, he added, that thus far has been supported by the ongoing investigation by Tainan prosecutors and police.

Cabinet spokesman Chen Chi-mai echoed Su's observation and attributed the commission's findings to its partisan makeup. "Formed by members recommended by the opposition parties, the panel had viewed the shooting through a political lens from the beginning and unsurprisingly, drew its conclusions despite the lack of scientific proof."

China Post

[Not a peep.] [Found 22 minutes later]

'Pan-blue' lawmakers reluctant to launch recall
The two major opposition parties yesterday would not commit themselves to a recall campaign against President Chen Shui-bian as proposed in what the Presidential Office dismissed as an "absurd" report on the March 19 shooting.

The "319 truth-finding committee," set up under a controversial law that the government has refused to recognize, on Monday released a 150-page report claiming the shooting was an "election ploy." [The report is actually 189 pages long This is an error of more than 20%.]

The committee, which had been denied access to key evidence because of disputes over its legitimacy, called on the Legislature to launch a campaign to recall Chen. [The so-called "disputes" were actually a ruling by the Council of Grand Justices that the statute to form the commission was "unconstitutional."

But the opposition Kuomintang and the People First Party, whose combined seats form a majority in the Legislature, said a recall campaign was a serious action that needed careful consideration of the political situation and public opinion.

Despite lauding the committee's investigation efforts, the two parties' lawmakers pointed out that Chen, inaugurated on May 20, is protected by the Constitution from being recalled within the first year of his current term.

Gee! I wonder why the China Post didn't have anything to say didn't list that on the index page of their web site.