I saw the Q&A session that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had with Zain Verjee of CNN. I thought she handled herself as professionally and as kindly as anyone can.

Did Mahathir deserve the kindness and the soft approach that she showed him? I have seen her questioning more harshly other Middle Eastern dignitaries on live television. She was more than kind with Mahathir.

When Mahathir returned to the comforts of his Malaysian audience and required reassurances, he suggested that dirty tactics were employed. I would like to suggest that it was he who has not been appropriately advised by his own advisers. I would have told him how Zain operates.

I would have told him that his patronising ways which most of us Malaysians and Asians submit to would have no influence or bearing on this anchorwoman.

With Mahathir, she was kinder because everything that she asked has been written about many, many times over and the information was also in the report of the US State Department for 2001. These are things that are on the minds of many Malaysians and most foreigners who know anything at all about Malaysian politics.

Mahathir suggested that he was ambushed. He was not. He walked into the lair assuming that his patronising ways will have its telling effects on Zain as well, but it just did not. Instead, he squirmed while repeating the same old answers, attempting to dilute a question by deflecting and pointing out similarities or whatever that you might find in America.

Maybe Zain did all of us Malaysians a favour: She has shown that there are opinions that are not acceptable to Mahathir and that one can actually hold on to them, tell Mahathir to his face and live to tell it another day as well!

Thank you, Zain!