Watch out: You’ve got mail

For a number of reasons, I will ignore the content of the e-mails that so exercised Joseph Muscat but this doesn’t mean that his performance on Bondì +will remain unremarked.

For starters, what possessed him? I mean, in the run-up to what will be an election year, the Leader of the Opposition puts himself at the disposal of a journalist, however fine a specimen of the genus that the journalist is, about a single issue that, whichever way you slice it, isn’t going to do the Leader of the Opposition much good.

Clever or not?

Not.

And, then, in the name of all that’s beautiful, what possessed Dr Muscat to leave an empty chair speaking for him for the first half of the show? Not that what he said himself was that much more eloquent than what the chair was saying for him but a politician eschewing a good 30 minutes-odd of exposure, doesn’t ring true.

Not much.

Still, it was his choice, as it was his choice to keep evoking the dim and inglorious past that is Labour’s in broadcasting by pointedly refusing to mention the name of the Nationalist Party, calling it instead the Prime Minister’s party, or some such euphemism. Back in the dark days of Viva Malta Soċjalista, the leader of the Nationalist Party was never mentioned by name, in some puerile stunt pulled by what used to pass for public service broadcasting in those days, and Dr Muscat’s OCD-level of insistence on not saying “Partit Nazzjonalista” was nothing if not reminiscent of back then.

If it were, at least, even slightly witty, it might have passed but so inane was Dr Muscat’s stunt that he had to resort to explaining it, much like a mediocre comedian having to explain a joke when the audience sits there contemplating its collective navel, the pearls of wisdom being strewn before it having failed to impress.

Dr Muscat was also pretty dire when he tried to hoist Lou Bondì with his own petard, an endeavour at which he failed singularly. He tried, with something of a smug smirk on his face, to refer to an episode that had been widely reported in the press and, subsequently, shown to be a canard of prime proportions. He insinuated, no doubt, he thought, subtly, that Mr Bondì had reported a dinner-table conversation by using the toilet to make a call (now that is technological wizardry) to someone.

Everyone who follows the news knows that Mr Bondì did no such thing and, to his credit, he (Mr Bondì) didn’t call Dr Muscat on the parliamentary inexactitude but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t point it up and shake my head in sorrow that the Leader of the Opposition should descend so low. Sad, very sad.

What was mildly amusing, even if only unconsciously so on Dr Muscat’s part, was the redefinition of language that permeated his answers to Mr Bondì’s questions.

For instance, we now have a new conjugation: I am a saint, you are bad, he is nasty, we are the good guys, you are the baddies, they are unspeakably nasty, leading to the logical conclusion that whatever is done by the Left (for want of a better descriptor) is in the interests of the nation, whatever is done by the Right (again, for want of...) is negative and whatever is done by the parallel secret service hounding honest journalists (obviously those on the Labour side of the media spectrum) is a danger to democracy and should cause us all to rest uneasy in our beds.

This continual harping on the erosion of democracy and associated themes is really wearing a bit thin. Fair enough, for someone brought up, as Dr Muscat was, in a country where democracy is a given, even the slightest hint of the occult seems like a great big deal, even if it isn’t even a ripple.

Just because someone might have nicked some data making Dr Muscat look a bit less than saintly doesn’t, actually, mean that the full might of the eavesdropping apparatus of the state is being brought to bear on every Joe and Josephine Citizen, for all the bleating and barking that is resorted to.

While on the subject of bleating and barking, I found Dr Muscat’s assertion that e-mail security is not what it should be, being as it was based on Alfred Sant’s “moral conviction” that was never disproved, to be twee in the extreme.

To start with, you can’t prove a negative, so no one can prove that Dr Sant’s e-mails were not compromised, even if you attribute scant credibility to his moral convictions, as one should. Or not.

And to be going on with, given that Dr Muscat mentioned this in the same breath as Evarist Bartolo and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s allegations that their mobile phones were tapped during the divorce debate, of all times, I think I can be forgiven for asking him to pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.

No nourishment-recommendations to make this week as we were a bit further North than usual, having made use of Virtù Ferries’ excellent service for a weekend in Sicily. Great fun, once you asked.

Just for the record, incidentally, in response to snide remarks occasionally made by assorted Lil’Elves, I pay for my meals and the notes I make available are simply as a public service. That’s not to say that I won’t accept a free dinner – just that there’s no guarantee that I’ll write nice things about it.

imbocca@gmail.com

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