Back in Time

It’s been a quiet week – away from the blog. Who am I kidding? A turtle flapped its way up Gnejna bay to lay its little eggs of hope only to be given the Kardashian treatment. Be a celebrity turtle for a day. As if that was not enough the J’accuse Prophesies all fell into place in one damned week. Columnists were made to regret their decision to back a lying politician to the hilt for the sake of winning an election. Remember the “objects of hate”? That was February and March 2008. J’accuse was asking the obvious questions: Can politics by default be successful? Is there anything shallower than the politics of taste? Does backing every Johnny Come Lately for the sake of winning a few votes pay in the long run?

Well it did not. Eerily we went back to those posting days and we noticed that we touched on much more issues that would come back to haunt certain people in 2012. It’s not so uncanny when you think of it but posts such as “PfP – What’s the pFuss?” turned out to be, how shall I say… relevant. Or take the one entitled “Theatrics of the Hard of Hearing” – also a topical issue. Only a few days previously we had highlighted the birth of a new star in “In-House Bickering“. Before that we had analysed Gonzi’s first cabinet choices in “A Cabinet for the People“… that included the following interesting excerpt:

Not something JPO can hope for seeing that his constant denial of knowledge of anything to do with Mistra seems to have exploded in his face. Small aside here. JPO’s treatment by the party had its setbacks too. He was an expendable puppet in the war with Sant. In the party’s list of priorities, proving that Sant would chicken out from confrontation was more important than harnessing a potentially damaging candidate. Projecting him into the limelight to outwit Sant meant that JPO could not limit the damage and his fruitless denial only ended up in Gonzi’s ruling out a Cabinet position for the man who garnered a voting bananza simply on the “sympathy” basis. In the process PN also showed a nasty side in its use of the media and journalists to achieve its aim. Nul points and more.

Then, as now, misinformation regarding the pros and cons of a coalition was high on the agenda for some people. Of course it did not help that they confused the actions of individuals projected to the dizzying heights of one-seat majorities with those of potential political parties that are accountable to a set of commitments. In The Real King Makers we highlighted the perils of the PN’s one -seat majority.

And yes, there was Daphne. Daphne who started the campaign planted before her PC posting comment after comment on J’accuse challenging the “objects of hate” to fall in line with the simple choice of electing PN by default … because Labour is not good for the country (sound familiar?). The tactic is well documented in the post “Seven Day Bloggists” – how serious conversation degenerated into M.A.D by blog. DCG decamped to her own blog created midway through the campaign – probably when she realised that having a blog meant controlling the content (only nice things happen on your blog). That same blog, the Runs, was the one that would back the tearful Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando to the hilt. Elect anyone but Alfred Sant. So much for rational voting….

There’s more to read in those pre-electoral months on J’accuse. We’ve been reading through to see how much of today’s mess was predictable back then. Turns out that the answer is “Quite a bit”. This blog is kicking back into life after a deserved pause (because I say so).