About the Blogmaster
Tim Maddog was abducted by aliens several years ago and is now secretly blogging from an island where even the domestic media doesn't know its name.
Before his abduction he helped to create The Sedition Commission, actively opposed an infamous racist political candidate, hosted his very own weekly radio show (where he was threatened by backers of the aforementioned candidate), and fought the College Republicans singlehandedly. During the 1980s and 90s he published the 'zine Vital Information.
Tim Maddog is an atheist, a vegetarian, a non-drinker, and a bicyclist. If you don't use your rear view mirror when driving alongside him, he will rip it off of your car with his bare hands. If you're an extra-large uniformed soldier, and you crash your motorcycle into him, be prepared for an ass-whoopin'. He's a Maddog! On the other hand, if you smile at him, he'll smile back at you. (See more on my Blogger profile)
The name of the rap?
The name of this blog comes from the title of a rap done by Tim Maddog on The Sedition Commission's An Ambient Boot to the Head. Listen to it online here.
Maddog Quotes
* Question everything -- especially this.
* My race is human. What's yours?
* They cannot control us!
* Part of the real secret is that "us" includes you.
* Ignorance is bliss, and I'm pissed.
* I only eat live meat.
* Everything in moderation -- even moderation itself. (...though I'm apparently not the first to have said it.)
Search INDIAC
The Best of INDIAC
- The 9 lives of "Chemical Ali"
- Kill, kill, kill
- SOP: Don't ask questions
- The vapor trails of 9/11
- Grilling Gilligan
- Botox as a WMD
- The truth about "mint tea"
- Why we write
- Wu'er Kaixi's lobotomy
- "Ethnic divisiveness" in Taiwan
- Shooting down "Bulletgate": i, ii, iii, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17 (and even more to come!)
- - - - - - - - - - -
Links
- 228 Massacre in US Media
- A-Changin' Times
- Adbusters
- Altercation
- AlterNet
- AmericaBlog
- Anarchist Defense League
- Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
- Atrios' Eschaton
- BartCop Political Commentary
- Black Box Voting
- Bloggence, Cunning, Exile
- Bloggers In Taiwan
- Boondocks
- Buck Fush
- Bush Lies
- Bush Recall
- Bushflash
- BuyBlue.org
- BuzzFlash
- Center for American Progress
- Choose the Blue
- Clever Claire
- Crooks and Liars
- Cursor
- Democracy Now!
- Democratic Forum Bush Polls
- Democratic Underground
- Disinfopedia
- Doubting to Shuo
- Dreams of Life
- Enemy of the Earth
- Factsheet5
- FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting)
- Free Inquiry
- From the Wilderness
- Get Your War On
- GNN (Guerrilla News Network)
- Independent Media Center
- Information Clearing House
- Jerome F. Keating's Writings
- Joe Conason
- Life of Brian
- London Calling
- Media Matters for America
- Michael Moore
- My Blahg
- NORML
- One Whole Jujuflop Situation
- Pagebao
- Politics & Science
- Public Library of Science
- Reverend Mykeru
- Rotten.com - Conspiracies
- SullyWatch
- Sutton Impact (formerly "Schlock'N'Roll")
- Taiwan Blog Feed
- Taiwan Today
- Take Back the Media
- Ted Rall
- The Hutton Inquiry
- The Levitator
- The Lost Spaceman
- The Memory Hole
- The Poison Dart
- The Rude Pundit
- The Taiwan Library Online
- The View from Taiwan
- The Wayback Machine
- Think Progress
- This Modern World
- THOMAS
- Today's Front Pages
- Troubletown
- TomPaine.com
- Wandering to Tamshui
- What Really Happened
- WhiteHouse.org
- Wikipedia
- Working for Change
- Google News
- - - - - - - - - - -
My Taiwan shitlist
Be careful with these motherfuckers who disguise themselves as "journalists." They're armed with memes like "renegade province" and aren't afraid to use them. If any of 'em ever see me, they'd better get on the other side of the fucking street.
Why do they hate Taiwan?
- Mike "I want my KMT" Chinoy
- William "Bulletgate" Pesek, Jr.
- Keith "Dime Novel" Bradsher
- Bevin "Anti-War (except when it comes to Taiwan)" Chu
INDIAC Archives
- January 2000
- July 2003
- August 2003
- September 2003
- October 2003
- November 2003
- December 2003
- January 2004
- February 2004
- March 2004
- April 2004
- May 2004
- June 2004
- July 2004
- August 2004
- September 2004
- October 2004
- November 2004
- December 2004
- January 2005
- February 2005
- March 2005
- April 2005
- May 2005
- June 2005
- July 2005
- August 2005
- September 2005
- October 2005
- November 2005
- December 2005
- January 2006
- February 2006
- March 2006
- April 2006
- May 2006
- June 2006
- July 2006
- August 2006
- September 2006
- October 2006
- November 2006
- December 2006
- January 2007
- February 2007
- March 2007
- May 2007
- June 2007
- July 2007
- August 2007
- September 2007
- October 2007
- December 2007
- January 2008
- February 2008
- March 2008
- April 2008
- May 2008
- June 2008
- July 2008
- August 2008
- September 2008
- October 2008
- November 2008
- December 2008
- January 2009
- February 2009
- March 2009
- April 2009
- May 2009
- June 2009
- July 2009
- August 2009
- September 2009
- October 2009
- November 2009
- December 2009
- January 2010
- February 2010
- March 2010
- April 2010
- May 2010
- June 2010
- July 2010
- August 2010
- November 2010
- December 2010
- February 2011
- August 2011
- February 2016
"Pay close attention to that man behind the curtain!"
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Ma Ying-jeou's thugs
Gestapo, 2008?
SUMMARY: Four legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) -- a party which frequently claims their opponents will use "dirty tricks" (奧步) to win the election -- initiated actions this past Wednesday which arrogantly overstepped their authority. Just 10 days before the presidential election, the legislators intruded into the campaign headquarters of those very opponents under the guise of conducting an "inspection." Such things are supposed to be handled by prosecutors (檢察官) with warrants.
Although it doesn't appear that they actually gained access to the campaign offices, they did abuse their authority by refusing the building's first-floor security's demands for them to sign in and by imagining that they have any such power to conduct "inspections" of private property.
DPP candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) summed things up quite well with this analogy:
The DPP has subsequently produced the lease for their office space for the public to view and make up their own minds:
The lease agreement
(Hsieh's campaign rented the office space under
the company name 「美夢成真」, or "Dreams Come True")
(Click image to enlarge)
(See also the article which accompanied the above image in the Liberty Times [自由時報] print edition)
On Friday, KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) was still "urging the Executive Yuan to investigate whether or not Hsieh's camp had occupied the bank's property for free." Read on, and see behind the multiple curtains of this crazy mess.
(REMINDER: Hovering your cursor on most links in my posts will reveal extra information in a small pop-up.)
Villainy and vengeance
Wednesday evening, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Alex Fai (費鴻泰) (caucus whip), Chen Chieh (陳杰), Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才), and Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) (an officer in Shih Ming-teh's [施明德] "redshirt" army [紅衫軍]) went to DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) campaign headquarters in Taipei looking for information they claimed would show an illicit relationship between Hsieh and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) or that Hsieh's campaign was either paying unfairly-reduced rent or none at all.
It began earlier in the afternoon with an interpellation of First Bank manager (總經理) Huang Hsien-chuan (黃獻全) and Minister of Finance Ho Chih-chin (何志欽) at the Legislative Yuan by Alex Fai during which Fai says he wants the two others to accompany him to DPP headquarters the following morning, then suddenly changes his mind and wants to go "right away" (馬上). See the flip-flop between the 3:33 and 3:43 marks in the video below.
7:16 YouTube video: "大話新聞 2008-03-12 Part 1-1"
According to an article in Thursday's Taiwan News, they used the excuse that they were doing a "fire inspection." After the four ignored first-floor security, went up to Hsieh's office on the thirteenth floor, and then took the elevator down to the third floor -- where they were blocked in by campaign staff -- police were called to the scene. When police arrived, they began to escort the four legislators away (no one was being placed under arrest), but a large crowd had apparently already gathered outside.
Son-of-a-gangster Lo Ming-tsai fled the scene amidst the pushing and shoving going on between DPP supporters and the many police who were outside the offices. These supporters wanted to legally detain the three remaining suspects until prosecutors arrived. The police were able to remove the KMT legislators from the scene a couple of hours later after prosecutors finally arrived to verify the DPP's claims and the DPP unblocked the exits.
Alex Fai (費鴻泰) on Thursday
I'm no Dr. Bill Frist, but I can detect neither an ear injury
nor any signs of brain activity by watching this guy on TV.
(Click image to enlarge)
As the KMT legislators were making their way to the police car, someone in the huge crowd that formed outside appears to have landed or nearly landed a blow on or just behind Fai's right ear, but in the footage of him "apologizing" for the incident Thursday afternoon, a medium close-up (above) didn't reveal any problems with his ear, chin, or any other part of the exterior of his head. TV images on Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon showed him variously in a wheelchair and on a hospital gurney. He has since conjectured that he's being persecuted because he is a "waishengren" (外省人) (his own term), or so-called "mainlander." (See video of that twisted excuse in Part 2 of the links here [21:11 on-screen "也許衝著我是外省人的關係"]).
Alex "Faker" Fai (費鴻「太過分」, screen right)
"stretch-er-ing" the truth on Wednesday
(Click image to enlarge)
KMT presidential candidate, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then made a statement "denouncing" (譴責) the violence "on both sides," obfuscating the fact that if these members of his own party had stayed in the Legislative Yuan and not overstepped their authority, the day's events would not have occurred. Subsequent statements from Ma included half-hearted apologies which must be seen to be truly understood.
Who's to blame?
If these four legislators did this without Ma's or KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung's (吳伯雄) knowledge or permission, shouldn't they be kicked out of the party? (Pre-completion update: Fai has offered to quit the party, but he wasn't kicked out.) If Ma and/or Wu did know about it, shouldn't they step down from their respective positions? And are the KMT's "apologies" really apologies when caucus whip Lin Yi-shih says that "these four legislators didn't do anything wrong." Is he advocating Gestapo-like tactics? What if the shoe were on the other foot?
Furthermore, can the KMT's "apologies" really count as apologies when a front-page ad in Thursday's United Daily News (聯合報) has Wu making the excuse that they "went to the wrong place at the wrong time"? Would it have been okay at "another time"?
These were not mere "rogue supporters" -- they were legislators, including a caucus whip and a convener of the Legislative Yuan Finance Committee. What the fuck kind of Bizarro World do these people live in?!
Why Wednesday?
With a report by Next magazine (一週刊) just coming out alleging that KMT legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) has US citizenship (or did during her legislative terms) and another story about Ma Ying-jeou's father Ma Ho-ling (馬鶴凌) having had an affair several years ago, one might suspect that Wednesday's incident was a KMT dirty trick to distract attention from these other things.
If, as Ma-the-son says, there's nothing to the green card story, why does he continue trying to divert everyone's attention toward the Central Election Commission's (CEC) report that said he doesn't have US citizenship when that's a horse of a completely different color?
Is this going to hurt Ma and help Hsieh to win the election? Will this event (四個笨蛋) be blamed if Hsieh wins the March 22 election the way those pesky "two bullets" (兩顆子單) were blamed when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) won in 2004? Only time will tell.
RELATED INFO:
* SocialForce.tw provides links to video of the event which I haven't seen any of the news channels broadcasting. The video begins with still pictures unaccompanied by sound, but then you can hear DPP officials describing just what they were doing as it happened.
* The DPP Youth blog (韋.革里拉軍團誌) posted video showing the facetious attitudes of the pan-blue legislators as they did their dirty deeds.
* "Dirty tricks"? I've got yer dirty tricks right here! Via Friday's China Post:
* Thursday's Taiwan News uses active verbs in the headline "KMT lawmakers cause chaos after storming Hsieh's office," telling readers just who did what as well as when and how they did it. (The link is to a cached version, because Taiwan News articles are inaccessible to non-subscribers after a week or so. I've saved the original page -- with images [try these links: 1, 2] -- as a PDF file for when the online version disappears.) Check out how Ma Ying-jeou deflects the blame:
* Thursday's China Post unsurprisingly makes it look like the incident happened spontaneously with the passive headline, First melee erupts as presidential race heats up. Note also that it's the "[f]irst" melee. Do they have inside information about plans for more such incidents? Foreigner in Formosa points out that the geographically-challenged newspaper hid the story. (I had found it via a Google search for info related to this incident.) While it was a front-page headline in the print edition (I saw it with my own eyes while I was at work), a link to the article was missing from the front page of the March 13, 2008 online edition (which I also verified with my own eyes). Try out their "select date" function at the bottom of their front page, and see for yourself.
* In this video from CTiTV, you can see that their videographer accompanied the four legislators in the elevator. The anchor says that their personnel "didn't see anyone kick or even touch the glass door" -- just 11 seconds after it appears that one of them does touch the door (1:50 in the video). Could it be that they're the only ones with a camera who saw it and that they're just not showing us the footage? Don't forget what the anchor just said, basically repeating what the reporter said around the 1:40 to 1:45 mark and what happened between the smoke and the mirrors. This report is presented as if the "evil DPP" set a "trap" for the "kind and gentle" KMT, as if the latter didn't decide on their own to show up at the headquarters of the former. And the more the reporter and anchor say that about the door "not being kicked," the more I suspect that it did happen.
* An article in Friday's China Post makes me wonder if Lo Ming-tsai is the door kicker:
* Another article in Friday's China Post quotes DPP candidate Frank Hsieh saying:
* The BBC goes FUBAR with this story, claiming that "MPs from both sides were arrested." That did not happen on this planet, but the usual suspect's name (Caroline Gluck) appears in the story:
RELATED BLOG POSTS FROM THE ARCHIVES:
* October 28, 2007: Taiwan's opposition kidnaps political discourse, in which the hissy-fit throwers need somebody to call the waaaaambulance!
* October 27, 2007: The KMT in Taiwan vs. the GOP in the USA, in which the "phony sanctimony and faux outrage" of the party that brought us George W. Bush is compared with that of the KMT.
* June 21, 2006: Pan-blue crybabies find Taiwanese incomprehensible, in which their complete lack of desire to integrate into Taiwan's society is made perfectly apparent.
* November 9, 2005: Topsy-turvy Taiwan, in which the pan-blue media turn death threats against politicians into "non-political" "performance art."
* December 18, 2004: A LAUNDRY LIST OF PAN-BLUE VIOLENCE
* May 20, 2004: "United" only in their divisiveness, in which the losers of that year's election stand behind shields of irony while accusing Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of "hiding behind bulletproof glass." (Foiled yet again!)
* April 21, 2004: I've got your "ethnic divisiveness" right here!, in which I insert a hyphen into "anal-retentive analysis" and pick at minute details such as telling bald-faced lies.
These aren't "tags" (at least not in KMT Bizarro World): Taiwan, 台灣, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨, violence, 暴力, dirty tricks, 奧步, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Wu Poh-hsiung, 吳伯雄, China Post, 英文中國郵報, Taiwan News, 台灣英文新聞, BBC, 英國廣播公司, Caroline Gluck, 凱若琳葛拉克
Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!
SUMMARY: Four legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) -- a party which frequently claims their opponents will use "dirty tricks" (奧步) to win the election -- initiated actions this past Wednesday which arrogantly overstepped their authority. Just 10 days before the presidential election, the legislators intruded into the campaign headquarters of those very opponents under the guise of conducting an "inspection." Such things are supposed to be handled by prosecutors (檢察官) with warrants.
Although it doesn't appear that they actually gained access to the campaign offices, they did abuse their authority by refusing the building's first-floor security's demands for them to sign in and by imagining that they have any such power to conduct "inspections" of private property.
DPP candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) summed things up quite well with this analogy:
[...] it is all nice and well that Ma apologized, but it shows he cannot control his party's legislators.Whether they got "in the door" or not is not the issue here. It's about their intentions.
As Ma yesterday said that it was a public issue whether Hsieh's campaign was illegally leasing the office building, Hsieh said he had no problem discussing the issue. However, it was another issue for KMT legislators to barge into his campaign headquarters and then condemn the violence of his [meaning Hsieh's] team members.
"It is to mistake the effect for the cause," he said. "It is like a woman who is sexually harassed by a man and slaps the man on the face. The man turns around and then accuses the woman of brutality."
The DPP has subsequently produced the lease for their office space for the public to view and make up their own minds:
The lease agreement
(Hsieh's campaign rented the office space under
the company name 「美夢成真」, or "Dreams Come True")
(Click image to enlarge)
(See also the article which accompanied the above image in the Liberty Times [自由時報] print edition)
On Friday, KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) was still "urging the Executive Yuan to investigate whether or not Hsieh's camp had occupied the bank's property for free." Read on, and see behind the multiple curtains of this crazy mess.
(REMINDER: Hovering your cursor on most links in my posts will reveal extra information in a small pop-up.)
Villainy and vengeance
Wednesday evening, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Alex Fai (費鴻泰) (caucus whip), Chen Chieh (陳杰), Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才), and Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) (an officer in Shih Ming-teh's [施明德] "redshirt" army [紅衫軍]) went to DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) campaign headquarters in Taipei looking for information they claimed would show an illicit relationship between Hsieh and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) or that Hsieh's campaign was either paying unfairly-reduced rent or none at all.
It began earlier in the afternoon with an interpellation of First Bank manager (總經理) Huang Hsien-chuan (黃獻全) and Minister of Finance Ho Chih-chin (何志欽) at the Legislative Yuan by Alex Fai during which Fai says he wants the two others to accompany him to DPP headquarters the following morning, then suddenly changes his mind and wants to go "right away" (馬上). See the flip-flop between the 3:33 and 3:43 marks in the video below.
7:16 YouTube video: "大話新聞 2008-03-12 Part 1-1"
According to an article in Thursday's Taiwan News, they used the excuse that they were doing a "fire inspection." After the four ignored first-floor security, went up to Hsieh's office on the thirteenth floor, and then took the elevator down to the third floor -- where they were blocked in by campaign staff -- police were called to the scene. When police arrived, they began to escort the four legislators away (no one was being placed under arrest), but a large crowd had apparently already gathered outside.
Son-of-a-gangster Lo Ming-tsai fled the scene amidst the pushing and shoving going on between DPP supporters and the many police who were outside the offices. These supporters wanted to legally detain the three remaining suspects until prosecutors arrived. The police were able to remove the KMT legislators from the scene a couple of hours later after prosecutors finally arrived to verify the DPP's claims and the DPP unblocked the exits.
Alex Fai (費鴻泰) on Thursday
I'm no Dr. Bill Frist, but I can detect neither an ear injury
nor any signs of brain activity by watching this guy on TV.
(Click image to enlarge)
As the KMT legislators were making their way to the police car, someone in the huge crowd that formed outside appears to have landed or nearly landed a blow on or just behind Fai's right ear, but in the footage of him "apologizing" for the incident Thursday afternoon, a medium close-up (above) didn't reveal any problems with his ear, chin, or any other part of the exterior of his head. TV images on Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon showed him variously in a wheelchair and on a hospital gurney. He has since conjectured that he's being persecuted because he is a "waishengren" (外省人) (his own term), or so-called "mainlander." (See video of that twisted excuse in Part 2 of the links here [21:11 on-screen "也許衝著我是外省人的關係"]).
Alex "Faker" Fai (費鴻「太過分」, screen right)
"stretch-er-ing" the truth on Wednesday
(Click image to enlarge)
KMT presidential candidate, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then made a statement "denouncing" (譴責) the violence "on both sides," obfuscating the fact that if these members of his own party had stayed in the Legislative Yuan and not overstepped their authority, the day's events would not have occurred. Subsequent statements from Ma included half-hearted apologies which must be seen to be truly understood.
Who's to blame?
If these four legislators did this without Ma's or KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung's (吳伯雄) knowledge or permission, shouldn't they be kicked out of the party? (Pre-completion update: Fai has offered to quit the party, but he wasn't kicked out.) If Ma and/or Wu did know about it, shouldn't they step down from their respective positions? And are the KMT's "apologies" really apologies when caucus whip Lin Yi-shih says that "these four legislators didn't do anything wrong." Is he advocating Gestapo-like tactics? What if the shoe were on the other foot?
Furthermore, can the KMT's "apologies" really count as apologies when a front-page ad in Thursday's United Daily News (聯合報) has Wu making the excuse that they "went to the wrong place at the wrong time"? Would it have been okay at "another time"?
These were not mere "rogue supporters" -- they were legislators, including a caucus whip and a convener of the Legislative Yuan Finance Committee. What the fuck kind of Bizarro World do these people live in?!
Why Wednesday?
With a report by Next magazine (一週刊) just coming out alleging that KMT legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) has US citizenship (or did during her legislative terms) and another story about Ma Ying-jeou's father Ma Ho-ling (馬鶴凌) having had an affair several years ago, one might suspect that Wednesday's incident was a KMT dirty trick to distract attention from these other things.
If, as Ma-the-son says, there's nothing to the green card story, why does he continue trying to divert everyone's attention toward the Central Election Commission's (CEC) report that said he doesn't have US citizenship when that's a horse of a completely different color?
Is this going to hurt Ma and help Hsieh to win the election? Will this event (四個笨蛋) be blamed if Hsieh wins the March 22 election the way those pesky "two bullets" (兩顆子單) were blamed when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) won in 2004? Only time will tell.
RELATED INFO:
* SocialForce.tw provides links to video of the event which I haven't seen any of the news channels broadcasting. The video begins with still pictures unaccompanied by sound, but then you can hear DPP officials describing just what they were doing as it happened.
* The DPP Youth blog (韋.革里拉軍團誌) posted video showing the facetious attitudes of the pan-blue legislators as they did their dirty deeds.
* "Dirty tricks"? I've got yer dirty tricks right here! Via Friday's China Post:
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A Taiwanese opposition lawmaker said Friday he will consider suicide if party presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou loses the presidential election on March 22.If you even entertain the thought that Fai would do the same, you're a fool!
Alex Fai of the opposition Nationalists said he felt extremely sad about the controversy surrounding an opposition invasion into the Taipei headquarters of Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh on Wednesday.
If the incident costs Ma his presidential victory, Fai said, "I will not exclude the possibility of ending my own life."
[...]
Before January's legislative poll, DPP lawmaker Wang Shih-cheng said he would jump into the sea if his party failed to win a single seat in the city of Taipei.
The Nationalists ended up with a clean sweep there, and Wang made good on his promise - though without any lasting ill effects.
* Thursday's Taiwan News uses active verbs in the headline "KMT lawmakers cause chaos after storming Hsieh's office," telling readers just who did what as well as when and how they did it. (The link is to a cached version, because Taiwan News articles are inaccessible to non-subscribers after a week or so. I've saved the original page -- with images [try these links: 1, 2] -- as a PDF file for when the online version disappears.) Check out how Ma Ying-jeou deflects the blame:
Speaking in Chiayi yesterday, Ma expressed "regret" over the incident and censored the Hsieh camp for "violence."(I think they mean "censured.")
* Thursday's China Post unsurprisingly makes it look like the incident happened spontaneously with the passive headline, First melee erupts as presidential race heats up. Note also that it's the "[f]irst" melee. Do they have inside information about plans for more such incidents? Foreigner in Formosa points out that the geographically-challenged newspaper hid the story. (I had found it via a Google search for info related to this incident.) While it was a front-page headline in the print edition (I saw it with my own eyes while I was at work), a link to the article was missing from the front page of the March 13, 2008 online edition (which I also verified with my own eyes). Try out their "select date" function at the bottom of their front page, and see for yourself.
* In this video from CTiTV, you can see that their videographer accompanied the four legislators in the elevator. The anchor says that their personnel "didn't see anyone kick or even touch the glass door" -- just 11 seconds after it appears that one of them does touch the door (1:50 in the video). Could it be that they're the only ones with a camera who saw it and that they're just not showing us the footage? Don't forget what the anchor just said, basically repeating what the reporter said around the 1:40 to 1:45 mark and what happened between the smoke and the mirrors. This report is presented as if the "evil DPP" set a "trap" for the "kind and gentle" KMT, as if the latter didn't decide on their own to show up at the headquarters of the former. And the more the reporter and anchor say that about the door "not being kicked," the more I suspect that it did happen.
* An article in Friday's China Post makes me wonder if Lo Ming-tsai is the door kicker:
Hsieh aides alleged that Fai and company kicked the door open to intrude. Fai said they all entered "peacefully."While Fai says he'll "quit ... politics altogether," Lo Ming-tsai -- the one who fled the scene before police arrived -- promises a much lesser sacrifice. Gee, I wonder why. (I also wonder if something is lost in translation here. Did they actually "kick [in/open]" any doors, or was it more like "barging in" or "intruding"?)
"If I did," Fai said, "I'll quit as lawmaker and politics altogether."
His three colleagues vowed to follow suit after they offered an apology.
Lawmaker Lo Ming-tsai said he would resign as convener of the Legislative Yuan finance committee, should he have kicked open the door.
The other two legislators, Chen Chieh and Luo Shu-lei, also asked to be forgiven for their sally, which was intended to find out whether Hsieh paid for an extra office on the thirteenth floor of the bank's building without paying rent.
"Please produce evidence that we kicked in the door," all four said, "and we all would resign."
* Another article in Friday's China Post quotes DPP candidate Frank Hsieh saying:
"It wasn't violence," Hsieh went on. He likened the free-for-all to a tit-for-tat. "Can you say a girl slapping a man trying to rape her is committing an act of violence?" he asked.What Hsieh means there is that he doesn't accept Ma's description of the violence being "on both sides." You tell him, Frank!
* The BBC goes FUBAR with this story, claiming that "MPs from both sides were arrested." That did not happen on this planet, but the usual suspect's name (Caroline Gluck) appears in the story:
According to the BBC correspondent in Taipei, Caroline Gluck, the run-up to elections in Taiwan are normally heated affairs, but violence-free.I guess Gluck "forgot" about the assassination attempt on Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) in March 2004, the gas bomber in December 2004, and so many other similar "violence-free" incidents. Michael Turton blogged this one in more detail while I was busy with this post.
So the clash at the DPP campaign offices - the first case of any disorder ahead of this month's presidential elections - was widely reported, our correspondent adds.
RELATED BLOG POSTS FROM THE ARCHIVES:
* October 28, 2007: Taiwan's opposition kidnaps political discourse, in which the hissy-fit throwers need somebody to call the waaaaambulance!
* October 27, 2007: The KMT in Taiwan vs. the GOP in the USA, in which the "phony sanctimony and faux outrage" of the party that brought us George W. Bush is compared with that of the KMT.
* June 21, 2006: Pan-blue crybabies find Taiwanese incomprehensible, in which their complete lack of desire to integrate into Taiwan's society is made perfectly apparent.
* November 9, 2005: Topsy-turvy Taiwan, in which the pan-blue media turn death threats against politicians into "non-political" "performance art."
* December 18, 2004: A LAUNDRY LIST OF PAN-BLUE VIOLENCE
* May 20, 2004: "United" only in their divisiveness, in which the losers of that year's election stand behind shields of irony while accusing Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of "hiding behind bulletproof glass." (Foiled yet again!)
* April 21, 2004: I've got your "ethnic divisiveness" right here!, in which I insert a hyphen into "anal-retentive analysis" and pick at minute details such as telling bald-faced lies.
These aren't "tags" (at least not in KMT Bizarro World): Taiwan, 台灣, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨, violence, 暴力, dirty tricks, 奧步, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Wu Poh-hsiung, 吳伯雄, China Post, 英文中國郵報, Taiwan News, 台灣英文新聞, BBC, 英國廣播公司, Caroline Gluck, 凱若琳葛拉克
Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!
Labels: dirty tricks, KMT, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan, violence, 台灣, 國民黨, 奧步, 暴力, 馬英九