Before the humiliation of the General Elections in Malaysia last month the Badawi Government was stridently insisting that bloggers were only engaged in masturbation and were not influencing anyone.Now ministers, ex ministers and all and sundry are embracing the new conventional wisdom that blogs are influential in politics. The latest study by Zentrum Future Studies (via Rantings by MM) seems to confirm this.

The irony of it all is that the power of the Malaysian bloggers are actually the creation of the Malaysian Government – if it was not so obsessed with controlling the mainstream media to the extent that it lost all credibility, Malaysians would still be happy trusting their newspaper, TV and radio stations instead of the blogs.

So what now for the Malaysian Government. If Unspun was Machiavelli and advising the ABB Government he would tell them to free up the Malaysian media. if they can control it make sure that the editors they put in place are good, professional and share the same vision as the government (assuming its got one).

Once this is done the government should no longer bother with the media but work on making themselves more credible and likeable. That means, difficult as it is to imagine, actually serving the people, seeking to influence people to their point of view through debates and discussions and having the intellectual capacity to embrace principles.

That would probably wipe out half the politicians, but is there any other way the ABB government can survive?