The Anwar-Shabery Debate

Everyone's talking about the debate, regardless of whether they watched it on Channel 9 or YouTube. I think it was a great sham, and a great shame.

Anwar is a debater. An orator. A charismatic speaker. Previously, our Finance Minister. He had facts. Figures. He was succinct & to the point.

Shabery was (and still is) none of those things. He appeared an inept puppet controlled by a really bad ventriloquist - the mouth was moving, but the wrong words were coming out. Never mind that he's not a finance person and had a poor grasp of the material in question, but he was also crippled by what was obviously a BN approved script, that couldn't cope with the independent questions asked by the panel. Yes, he was better than our previous information minister (read: the Al-Jazeera incident) but that is not saying much at all.

*sigh* It's not that I am whole-heartedly supportive of the opposition... Our government, I believe, is capable of great things, and historically, (though debatable) our ship hasn't been steered off the side of a cliff. However, when the question is about budgetary allocations & related government spending, and Shabery first accuses the speaker of not having kept abreast of current petrol prices then proceeds to take pot shots at Anwar's sexual orientation... how am I not supposed to think that the cheap shots were because he has no answer?

BN should have fielded someone more of Anwar's caliber, and provided facts & figures, not innuendo & shade. *sigh* Don't send an unarmed man to the war.