An Apology to Manuel Cuschieri

I don’t really know you. I’ve never met you and I cannot even claim to have heard any of your radio programmes that shot you to notoriety and turned you into a household name synonymous with political mud-slinging in the days of Alfred Sant. I might have criticised your brother for his lack of political sense and his hopeless career as the 6th seat that never was and I will probably do so again since such criticism falls well within the  rules of the game.

The fact that I do not really know you does not mean that I am  not obliged to deal with you in the manner that any respectable citizen deserves to be treated by a columnist and blogger. However, I believe that I still owe you an apology.

I owe you an apology for having compared you to Daphne Caruana Galizia. True, Daphne is no foreigner to mud-slinging and engages daily in the “guilt by association” tactic that has been perfected to a tee by our wonderful political class. But you see, Manuel, you were not half as sophisticated in your tirades in your time. You might have tried to repeat lies to no end in the hope that the gushing followers of your rants would take your word as the gospel truth.

In fact, forgive me if I say that the similarity she bears with your style in this case is uncanny. The thing is that in your case you might have sold lies. You were just an evangelist, a propaganda peddler, eager to drum your gospel into your unquestioning flock’s psyche. Daphne goes one better. She denigrates by implication, and moves on to unhesitatingly savage even people who are remotely affiliated or connected to any of her pet hates.  You might have seen your enemy as one big anonymous blue blob. But your rallying cry is nothing compared to her Facebook forays and ISP indictments. It’s all about taking a half- truth, a sweeping assumption,  another desperate pigeonhole, and creatively moulding a hundred links by spurious association.

There comes a time when there need be no factual lien between her targets. Take the manner in which time and again Daphne has peddled the idea that J’accuse is somehow involved in some pro-Labour or pro-AD conspiracy. Our name is dropped in the middle of a rant against a fellow columnist simply based on the hopeless claim that J’accuse is somehow fixated on being anti-PN. I’m sorry, Manuel, but your “the enemy of my enemy” line has been worn out of all recognition. Daphne is desperate to slam the Labour/AD label on this blog without once engaging on the matters which this blog has raised time and time again. Take the “Why now?” issue…. it’s too complicated to answer, is it? Better apply some of the good old mud-slinging tactic and throw in some non-sensical statements like “remote controlled blog” (What is a remote controlled blog anyway, Manuel? Can you tell me?)

By the way, Manuel, in case you mistakenly believe that there might be more for me to apologise about : I’m not the one who  compared you to Lou Bondì.  You must admit that if it is style and method that we are talking about, the description fits like a tailor-made glove. However, Manuel, I did not come up with that comparison myself and  I always give credit where credit is due. Lou’s another one who seems to have been perfecting  your style for some time. Don’t worry, he rarely takes criticism head on so he’s bound to claim never to have read anything about this comparison. He doesn’t need to anyway, there’s always Daphne to do the business for him. You know… a sneaky message and a call here… a mud-slinging blog post there…. There must be lots of back scratching going on.

So there Manuel. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to have compared you to the masters of modern day mud-slinging and grudge-bearing slurs. You were just the primitive precursor of this new politics. Your legacy however seems to be guaranteed a dark and slimy future whether or not you return to grace the radio-waves (please don’t).

So, Manuel, if you did find my comparing you to Daphne Caruana Galizia to be in any way jarring or insulting, then I take it back. In any case… she’s much better than you in doing what you used to do…  but I guess you knew that already.

Saħħiet.