Vacant, vacuous Umno
For the third successive week, the Umno propaganda apparatus ground out the theme of traitor to race and country, in sustained volleys that showed that a tipping point has been passed at which the shrill are held in precarious check.
For the third successive week, the Umno propaganda apparatus ground out the theme of traitor to race and country, in sustained volleys that showed that a tipping point has been passed at which the shrill are held in precarious check. 
For the tremors of desperation audible in Umno's attacks on Pakatan Rakyat and its pied piper, Anwar Ibrahim, were unmistakable. Even Dr Mahathir Mohamed was enlisted; not that it would take a lot for an inveterate Anwar hater like him to join the offensive. But the vacuous nature of the attacks surprised.
Traitor is not a charge one levies with levity. Not for nothing is treason, synonymous with traitor, a capital offense in many societies. Selling out country and community for whatever motive is rightly considered a dastardly act, deserving the gravest punishment. Given the nature of the act and the gravity of its punishment, the traitor accusation is not lightly bandied.
Right now, not so with Umno and its shrill propaganda arm Utusan Malaysia. The 'T' word is being freely lobbed.
It is said that you can judge a person by the size of the thing that makes him go mad. The prospect of Umno losing its more than six decade-long traction among the Malays has triggered a revulsion that has shaken loose all tethers, with deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin leading the venom spewing brigade.
Muhiyiddin, at least, does not disparage democracy when tying the 'T' word around Anwar's neck. Not for him the insensate burning down of the house to destroy the 'traitor' Anwar.
No such quavers on the part of Mahathir. In an interview with Mingguan Malaysia (Aug 16), he opined that democracy and human rights are only the latest weapons employed by a consistently imperial West to subjugate the world. To Mahathir, an ambitious Anwar Ibrahim, now conveniently appareled in the garb of human rights agitation, is a tool of the West. If his ambition demanded it, he claimed, Anwar would have no qualms selling the country.
Historical amnesia
Mahathir is unabashed at deploying the half-truth. He said that Anwar joined Umno in 1982 because he knew he could not become prime minister if he preferred PAS. Once in, he proceeded to become youth chief, vice president and deputy president in quick succession.
Left unsaid about Anwar's supposedly vaulting ambition was that it was Mahathir who invited Anwar to join Umno and supported his meteoric rise in the party.
He was initially opposed to Anwar's challenge for the deputy president's post in 1993 but retracted his opposition when it appeared that Anwar was riding an irresistible tide. Needless to say, it is only Anwar who acts from expediency and who lacks principle.
It would take a willing suspension of disbelief to swallow whole Mahathir's arguments, as published in Utusan, a demand a tad less onerous than what was required of our credulity when he had suggested that Anwar's black eye in September 1998 was self-inflicted.
Historical amnesia makes us vulnerable to repeating mistakes. Not so to Mahathir: his furtive style and chameleon instincts have always made him a difficult politician to pin down even when he has plainly contradicted himself.
But over a long period of time, it can be seen that he will say and do just about what it's politically expedient for him.
Anwar Ibrahim's particular combination of idealism and self-serving ambition is short of this perversity.
