Unspun

Did NST Group Editor Brendan Periera resign over allegations of plagarism? Who cares? To split hairs over whether he did or did not plagarize is to be divered from the game being played by Mahathir and Badawi, with bloggers, websites and others muddying the picture.

Its all a bit like chess. If you want to checkmate the king, you take out its pawns and other supporters before going for the coup de grace. Brendan and Kali, rightly or not, have been perceived as Badawi’s pawns. No, that would not do them justice, they are perceived more like Badawi’s bishops.
So taking them out would score Mahathir’s side a victory. The art to taking them out would be to convert them from perceived assets to perceived liabilities to the Badawi camp.

Mahathir has been chipping away at them, taking all sorts of opportunities to swipe at them. The duo having made enemies at the NST didn’t help as you have bloggers like Rocky’s Bru sniping at the wings and amplifying every single misstep they make, with a vengence.

Now also comes another minor victory for Mahathir, the announcement that ECM Libra is being dissolved.

So the score is 1.5 Mahathir and 0 Badawi so far. With Brendan gone, Kali will now be the sole lightning rod for Badawi’s detractors and enemies. Whether he stays or goes down the road will depend on whether Mahathir and the other detractors can convert him into too large a liability.

There is a lesson here for Badawi and it lies with his selection of supporters. Unspun has written about how the calibre of people who are up against Mahathir are poor in a former posting (The Mahathir-Badawi broughaha, from a distance.

Perhaps