Remy Choo Zheng Xi -- glorifying a position of aloof neutrality

[Sammyboy RSS Feed]

An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

I will be kind and describe his FB post as being of "aloof neutrality".

If I were more unkind I should use the term "asinine fatuity".

I wonder if he got that "midnight" call from a certain cabinet colleague again.


**(**)**(**)****(**)**(**)****(**)**(**)**

Remy Choo, on Facebook:

I haven't written anything about the Lee vs Roy debacle publicly because the entire situation has devolved into a farce. There's an intolerable amount of grandstanding on the one hand and too much ego on the other.

No great principles stand to be established on the side of freedom of speech: does it really make sense to take up arms and argue that one has the freedom to baselessly accuse someone else of misappropriation with impunity? No great principles of qualified privilege stand to be established here (unlike the fight over the Reynold's privilege defence of responsible journalism in Review Publishing v Lee Hsien Loong). Liability seems to be admitted and all that remains is to assess damages.

So, at some point, those hungry for a showdown in Court need to take a long, hard think and ask: what is the point, in law or public interest, that you hope to establish? If it's to get a thorough airing of issues relating to CPF, we're already getting that in spades, I don't think it's necessary or healthy to have those issues conflated (let alone become synonymous) with the factual inaccuracies of the original statements.

On the side of the Government, whoever's advising PM on his PR strategy needs to be sacked. Reputation =/= Ego. You can get damages in law for the former, but you shouldn't price how much the latter is bruised into the equation.

In the last couple of days I've spoken to dozens of people equally annoyed and disillusioned at both sides of this fight.

Is a middle ground possible? Of course! Cases settle before trial all the time. It's going to be a lot less exciting than watching a courtroom showdown and public debacle but it's definitely going to help get the rest of the country over this unhealthy fixation with this tawdry spectacle



Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com.