Ma Wants to be Seen as Predident, but He Really Does Not Want to be Responsible for Anything.

Friday April 08, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Taiwan once again went through one of those questionable "Say what??" matters as regards its president. Ma Ying-jeou is the one who was "shocked" yes absolutely "shocked" when a half a million US$ got into his bank account. Of course it was his secretary's fault and Ma neither knew anything about it or even questioned it until it became public. Then he was "shocked." So what now?

Well it seems that Ma nominated Shao Yen-ling for the Council of Grand Justices. Shao has a past controversial record and has been called one of Taiwan's "dinosaur" judges. So what happened?

When it hit the fan that Shao had such a past controversial record, it made people protest the nomination, Ma held a press conference and said he was again "shocked" to learn Shao had this past record. According to Ma, Shao failed to make clear her role in a High Court ruling on the rape of a three year-old victim. Shao cited precedent that the three year old did not protest enough.

So it stood for a moment that Ma was shocked to learn this past, but then Shao spoke to the media. Shao said she had spelled this out as soon as she was nominated and that there was no way that anyone (including Ma) could claim that they did not know her past.

Ma claimed he had no idea it was Shao who was the presiding judge; Shao claimed that she had repeatedly made this clear and anyone involved in the process had to know it. Who would you believe? Is Ma living up to his nickname of the phony pony? Does Ma ever want to take responsibility for any action? His secretary had to go to jail for putting the money in Ma's account; is Shao somehow supposedly to be at fault although she repeatedly stated words to the effect that "I was the judge in that controversial case. Yes Me! No one else! Don't nominate me."

Has Ma ever taken responsibility for anything in his life? I guess that would be against his image.