CREEPING INSOLENCE: A recent tweet by Lim Guan Eng illustrates the persona of Pakatan leaders
Journalists with tough questions have instead been barred from state government functions in Penang. It has not occurred to DAP leaders that the propensity for political fights over the slightest slights must have troubled their voters, who grew up with BN's moderate politics.
CAO CAO shifted his focus from the battlefields to governance to earn aristocratic qualities after the prime minister-cum-warlord lost in Chibi to the Liu Bei-Sun Quan alliance.
Many of us students of politics don't normally get to catch the 6.30pm screening of Three Kingdoms. It is the 1.30am repeat of the series that shall keep us awake beyond Euro 2012 where the Spanish armada of Hobbits-sized magicians taught us new things about warfare techniques.
It was a political marriage when Liu Bei, 48, married the 18-year-old sister of the Sun Quan only to survive an assassination attempt in front of the dithering Sun Quan.
Liu Bei represents nobility, sincerity and character, hardly ever ordering the beheading of rebellious generals or "misguided" advisers.
It is an epic tale of brilliant scholars and generals, of ambition and, yes, deceit, one of the many terms DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng invokes recklessly.
In the reasoning of this political pugilist, a victory for the Barisan Nasional in the upcoming general election shall produce 5Ds -- deficit, debt, dictatorship, deceit and brain Drain.
Never mind the total absence of Zhuge Liang's traits -- Liu Bei's outstanding adviser -- his masterful strategies, quotes of wisdom and humility. It is the creeping arrogance within the ranks of Pakatan Rakyat that should worry its voters the most.
Malaysia a dictatorship? Brain drain? Deceit? With 100 million people now living outside their countries of origins, the circulation of talent and resources can hardly have impoverished host countries.
Voters, dissecting every pronouncement of the leaders of the four Pakatan Rakyat states following the experiment with a motley group of politicians, must have observed that the Barisan Nasional has not sued Guan Eng for this recent tweet of 5Ds.
Journalists with tough questions have instead been barred from state government functions in Penang. It has not occurred to DAP leaders that the propensity for political fights over the slightest slights must have troubled their voters, who grew up with BN's moderate politics.
Guan Eng and party adviser Lim Kit Siang may find themselves rated by history as introducers of combustible expressions and conceited politics.
The senior Lim posted this last November: "Whenever Najib (Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak) goes abroad to address international audiences, he positions himself as the 'Great Moderator' taking on all extremists, but inside the country he has done absolutely nothing in the past 31 months to marginalise the racial and religious extremists, having failed to speak up and speak out against the most irresponsible and reckless incitement of racial hatred and religious tension which have caused the worst racial and religious polarisation in the nation's history."
If we were to follow this father-and-son logic, apart from the 5Ds, the BN must also be blamed for "the worst racial and religious polarisation in the nation's history".
Even as the shocking lack of finesse and respect for truth appears to be endemic among these very people entrusted to care for the poor in the four states, a state exco member in Selangor was fussing the other day about the doggedness of the constituents.
"The culture has become a norm among the people," said Selangor Education, Higher Education and Human Capital Development Committee chairman Dr Halimah Ali.
"Democracy 101" demands elected representatives serve the people 24/7. Democracy transcends the desire to shout and blame others.
It is about providing safety nets for the bottom 40 per cent of the population. Arrogance brought Cao Cao to his knees in Chibi; it is the absence of humility that shall torment Pakatan leaders in the end.
