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Slippery Ma reminiscent of Nixon
By Jerome Keating
Former US president Harry Truman was a man known both for his blunt, straightforward talk and his frank and often-uncomplimentary assessments of people.
One of his favorite targets was a member of the Republican Party, Richard Nixon. Nixon entered Congress in 1947 when Truman was president, and in the ensuing years they had many battles.
It was not surprising therefore that when Nixon and then-senator John F. Kennedy were campaigning for the presidency in 1960, Truman, even though he also had no great love for Kennedy, came out with this well-known quote: “Richard Nixon is a no-good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.”
At that time Truman went on to predict that Nixon was easily beatable. Kennedy won narrowly, but Nixon was by no means through. In 1962, he ran for governor of California and lost, but he came back and won the presidency in 1968 and was re-elected in 1972. He and vice president Spiro Agnew ran on a ticket of law and order. Thus, history, along with Nixon, seemed to be proving Truman wrong.
Then came Watergate, and this seemingly small matter demonstrated without question how Nixon could and did lie, bringing down his presidency.
Despite the successes Nixon had had in his years of public service, his character flaws and traits proved to be his downfall. When the pressure was on, as Truman predicted, Nixon would lie.
Today, Taiwan faces a situation with a president who has also been elected twice, once with a large majority in 2008 and then with a diminishing majority in 2012. There were people early on who declared President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) phony and incompetent, but the majority did not seem to think so. In general, the media also gave Ma a “buy.” This continued until his image was severely challenged by The Economist magazine in November 2012, when it branded him as a “bumbler,” a moniker by which he came to be known internationally.
Ma survived that branding, but his tarnished image now caused greater scrutiny to be given to his actions and decisions.
Like most politicians, Ma has always had critics, but his image makers and public relations team had managed to ward off any serious attacks. Similarly, Taiwan had not had a person with both Truman’s past stature, media access and requisite bluntness to chastise Ma in public. The game-changer that leveled the playing field proved to be modern technology coupled with the Sunflower movement.
Because the movement was not aligned with a political party, it could not be accused of party bias. None of its members were running for office; they had more to lose than to gain. Thus, as a tipping point, the movement was able to proceed far beyond calling Ma a bumbler. Ma’s inner character, like that of Nixon’s, was now being brought into question across the nation and to the outer world.
What Truman over the years had been able to see and point out about Nixon was the inner self that lay behind his actions. He perceived the inner paradigms and goals that were behind exterior activity. Nixon wanted to be in the center of decisionmaking so much that he was prepared to lie if necessary just to keep his hand in.
In addition, so great was Nixon’s confidence in his abilities that he secretly gave orders to have tape recordings made of important meetings in the White House. His reason was to provide posterity with a record of the way critical or momentous decisions were made for the country under his presidency. Ironically it would be some of those very recordings that would give the lie to Nixon’s denials that Watergate was of his doing.
Thus far, despite some smoking guns, there have not been any tapes or secrets exposed revealing criminal involvement or intent by Ma in matters of state, unless one counts the press leaks that caused former prosecutor-general Huang Shih-ming’s (黃世銘) resignation.
However, modern technology has added a transparency of its own. With the ability to instantly record, play back and replay scenes and images, Ma’s critics can constantly monitor and record his words and promises and then immediately contrast them with his actions.
Thus, savvy Sunflower participants have had the means and grounds to make unprecedented claims in both words and posters that Ma is a “liar” and one whose conflicting words and promises cannot be trusted.
For those who watched the trials of Watergate unfold, the trail of guilt and responsibility climbed higher and higher up the ranks of the Nixon administration until it reached the top.
For the US public there was a gradual awareness of the guilt of a man who ironically had previously campaigned on a ticket of law and order. In Taiwan, the Sunflower movement’s occupation of the Legislative Yuan has a acted like a “collective Harry Truman” in that it has exposed the wide gap between Ma’s words and his actions.
This movement has been able to see through and portray a Ma who, whatever his inner paradigms are, is incapable of working in a democracy and does not seem to have the defense and preservation of Taiwan at heart.
In the aftermath of the occupation, battle lines are being drawn. Some members of Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) are seeking revenge on the students.
All are going to have to take sides with many smoking guns on the ground. Taipei’s Zhongzheng First Police Precinct Chief Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧) claims pressure from above for his derelict actions over the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan (ART) protesters. Taipei Mayor and KMT loyalist Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) will not accept his resignation. The police have yet to explain why Chang An-le (張安樂) — also known as the “White Wolf” — could publicly chastise the students, but the police do not even know where this former fugitive and man on bail lives.
With elections on Nov. 29 a little over six months away, this even reminds us of the issue of Sean Lien’s (連勝文) shooting. What is hidden there? The police have the dead body of an audience member, the weapon, the shooter and hundreds of witnesses, but they do not seem to want to go anywhere near where the answers to motive and target lie. With many of the KMT listed above running for office, the public has to ask: “Why?”
Jerome Keating is a commentator in Taipei.
source: Taipei Times
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