The biter bit*

It is the Prime Minister's birthday, so I making it a point to be sort of nice to him - at least for a day.  I know that he is a man who is sensitive to criticism and does not take kindly to flak.  But then we all hope - at least at MediaToday - that he will take it in his stride and not personally.

My criticism concerns Lawrence Gonzi the Prime Minister, not Lawrence Gonzi the man.

I am a bit confused and bewildered at the fact that after the reaction to the condemnation statement by the PN executive at the three MPs, one of the MP's is asking the executive to expel Cachia Caruana.

It is of course Pullicino Orlando who is asking for Cachia Caruana's head on a plate, based on his allegation that he was in collusion with the Labour Party. JPO has said that he has witnesses to prove this.

On Monday In-Nazzjon stupidly pictured JPO's partner at a PL activity.

Was the newspaper trying to say that JPO's pillow talk can get to Labour? If so, they should say it and stand up to be counted.

If the PN want to continue hitting out at JPO then they should expel him and call an election.  

If they do not have the balls to do so, then they should keep quiet.

I have no doubt that JPO has witnesses to prove some of his points, but aren't we turning political parties into kangaroo courts?

But it's a bit rich of the executive to be asked to expel one of its members for collusion with Labour when the same person voted with Labour in the last parliamentary motion.

The only reason that the PN has not kicked out JPO is not because it does not want to emulate the Bord tad-dixxiplina tal-Labour, which kicked out Toni Abela and Wenzu Mintoff, but because of the PN's delicate one-seat majority. 

With JPO expelled, the party would have to call a general election. 

In this respect, the executive's condemnation was a half-baked reaction. As is to be expected, when you have someone clutching your crotch, you don't exactly prance around like a ballerina.

The same executive that never had the gall or decency to condemn the Medusa of Bile - the Queen of Bile herself - for taking Mugliett, Robert Arrigo, Jean Pierre Farrugia, JPO, Dalli and Debono and so many others including Guido de Marco and their families to the cleaners, is fact. It also says a lot about the history of condemnation from political parties. Most buckle at the shit-slinging match of the Medusa herself, others such as JPO have not and have hit back.

RCC's assertion that JPO is vendetta-driven is also rich, considering how he himself has excelled in the art of spin.  

That JPO asks the executive to expel RCC is of course far-fetched and silly. It's clear that JPO is trying to score some brownie points with some Nationalist sympathisers, or better still, trying to hammer the last nail in RCC's coffin.

That he still believes in his former colleagues who would love to do away with him leads me to believe that no one is seeing the bigger picture.

RCC should have resigned a long time ago but then neither JPO, nor Mugliett and nor anyone else dared raise a finger to question this in the past.

But in this country, resignations only transpire when you lose a parliamentary vote and the reaction to this is that it is usually translated into accusations that the motivation is vendetta-driven.

Before explaining why Cachia Caruana should have resigned a long time ago, I should say that the same should apply to Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.

It is was he who won the PN the election in 2008, based on the premise that he was mercilessly crucified and accused by Alfred Sant over the alleged pressure he applied on MEPA regarding his Mistra application.

Now, to confuse the matter even further, RCC has given Sant a 'diploma' of credibility for his stance on JPO. An unbelievable U-turn, coming from a man who made it his business to demonise Sant. The PN stood by JPO throughout the whole saga, but after they won the election they realised the implications of their association, and dumped him in the hopes that he would fade away.

Somehow, someone did not appreciate JPO's tendency to neither forgive nor forget, and to hang on.

But instead of leaving and resigning, he decided to stay on and fight.

His decision, I suppose, is based on the premise that without him, the party would not have been in government and that he was used and then unceremoniously sidelined.

On the other hand, no one in the party seems to have appreciated his role in 2008 - when the PN won the election. RCC should have resigned a long time ago for a total different reason, for his role in influencing the media in the Meinrad Calleja trial. I know because I was there and I was on the receiving end.

The whole background to the stabbing incident against Cachia Caruana has never been really replayed. Perhaps we should redress that. But in that period when he effectively was number two after Fenech Adami everything was done to elevate the persona of that liar and criminal Zeppi l-Hafi. The man who was given the presidential pardon to supposedly say the truth.

I'm afraid the truth will never be known, but what I do know is that The Times, The Malta Independent and In-Nazzjon were three organs which stood by to elevate the 'character' of Zeppi l-Hafi and judge without a hearing someone for allegedly masterminding the stabbing incident. RCC was obsessed with the fact that anyone who dared question the veracity or credibility of Zeppi l-Hafi was in cahoots with evil forces.

I remember every telephone call from the man who would read and take umbrage at every comment about the case - including one that would underline the contradictions and attempts to eradicate the credibility of witnesses.

Perhaps I should mention one witness from Mdina: an unassuming man who effectively saved RCC's life but was later violently questioned over his version of events by the same press, which joined forces at the time to decimate his reputation - even going so far as to attribute serious 'medical' conditions to him, which could have impaired his 'vision' on the day. 

And this was only because of his insistence that it was Zeppi l-Hafi who knifed RCC, not someone else.

Sant's assessment of RCC the Cardinal is perhaps the cherry on the cake: the biter bit.