Yes, I did watch Frankie Tabone on TVHemm, and it was so shocking that I refuse to discuss it
I was uncomfortable with it. When people go beyond a certain point mentally, exposing them on television is the 21st-century equivalent of poking the inmates at Bedlam.
It is impossible to feel sorry for him, because he is such a foul and nasty bastard, and completely self-involved and egocentric, but this sentiment is different.
It is to do with self-respect. I cannot enjoy the spectacle of somebody debasing himself and being exposed to debasement in that fashion, without feeling somehow debased myself, and so I don’t enjoy it.
And that is quite apart from the fact that Debono is the past already. He didn’t have to be dragged out again for another show when he’s wall to wall on Super One.
Last Friday’s screaming and shouting and self-humiliation were more than enough. It should have ended there.
We don’t need any more proof that there’s something very seriously wrong there. Anybody who hadn’t picked that up by Monday is never going to pick it up.
What Monday’s absolutely horrific performance on TVHemm might have driven home – in a way that perhaps people have not been able to understand – is just how terrible the experience of dealing with him must have been for the prime minister and a few others over the last three or four years.
For that alone, he wins my respect. I couldn’t handle Debono for more than a few telephone calls and a couple of meetings. Basically, if you’re going to harangue me, you can go and find a wall and harangue that. But then I had the liberty of choice. Others did not.
For the same two reasons – that psychological problems paraded for public delectation make me deeply uncomfortable, and that he is now really and truly the past – I can no longer see much point in reading Debono’s blog.
This sentence was the final straw.
and once again i repeat public broadcasting should be a forum of unity not division – do not fall to their trap – happy christmas to joseph calleja
All the damage he could do politically to the Nationalist Party has been done. There is nowhere left to go and at a humane level he really should be taken in hand. The Labour Party, meanwhile, should have the good sense and the basic common decency to stop parading this unhappy, unwell individual on its television station. Nothing good can possibly come of it, not even for Labour.
You don’t put a politician in the full throes of mania – yes, mania – on prime-time television unless you are prepared to bring up the stark, staring issue of that mania and discuss it.
It’s not Debono’s good ideas or his voting against the government which have been the real news and the real issues since day one. It’s his mania, a topic nobody has ever been willing to touch in public.
On Monday, he was in full flight, and the matter can’t be avoided any longer. Stop this, please – all of you, Labour included. It’s wrong.
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I agree with you a 100 per cent, and that is what my friends and I had been discussing but then this guy has a family, where are they?
I would have imagined that they realised what is going on with their son, why aren’t they doing anything about it?
Or do they think he is so good, so clever that they cannot see beyond their own noses.
I sincerely hope he gets help, and he needs to get it fast.
“Nothing good can possibly come of it, not even for Labour.”
I disagree completely. A lot of good can come of it. It will lessen their chances of being in government.
And the longer Labour stays in opposition, the better for them and the country as a whole.
As for Frankie boy, he truly and honestly believes that the world revolves around his arse. Enough said.
I don’t think you are the ideal person to tell Labour what to do with Frankie’s appearances on their tv station. Perhaps you can also ask Peppi Azzopardi why in 1998 he hosted a Programme from Cospicua featuring Mintoff. Also you can go and ask for the Net TV footage of Pierre Portelli interviewing Mintoff, I am sure you can get that footage much easier than Rai footage. May I remind you that Mintoff is worse than Tabone according to your standards and eveninw, but at that time I am sure you have not said anything while he was featuring on state TV and Net TV. Short term memory syndrome.
[Daphne – Mintoff wasn’t mentally ill at the time, Luigi. He was just a spiteful bastard. The mental illness came later.]
Ok I agree with you, that he was a spiteful bastard.
I truly believe that spite is a by-product of mental illness.
Also by the same argument if Frankie proposed reforms which I assume won’t be in the PN’s electoral manifesto, but then they feature, wouldn’t Dr. Gonzi be a spiteful idiot as well? We have to wait and see for this.
[Daphne – Your thought processes are incredibly immature.]
You know Luigi, I’m glad you brought up the issue of Franco’s reforms, and it seems that you have repeated what Franco has said (shouted would be a more exact word, but hey, let’s not split hairs) in last Monday’s TV programme.
Your argument, parroting Franco’s, seems to take issue with the possibility of the PN using Franco’s proposals in its electoral programme.
Excuse me, but what was Franco recently, if not a member of the governing party? Not a very industrious one, may I add, seeing he only bleats about having drafted the same couple of laws during his tenure as Parliamentary Secretary, which means that he drafted a law every 16 months.
OK, so seeing that he was PAID to do something, his work does not belong to him, but to the person who appointed him to that position.
One may argue (erroneously) that his work belongs to Malta, as the taxpayer footed the bill, but Franco has as much right to his drafts as a paid mechanic has to the repairs he made to a car.
¨All the damage he could do politically to the Nationalist Party has been done.¨
Not sure I agree with you at all, I´m afraid.
In the course of history quite a number of politicians with psychological problems have caused untold damage to their countries.
You cannot reckon with such a person and try to assume they will act logically and in a morally correct manner, because the only thing they want is to be on the front pages.
This is what makes Franco so dangerous to Malta, not the policies he is going on about.
One thing is to feel sorry for him, another thing is avoid addressing the fact that he could still cause a lot of damage through his need to be in the spotlight.
Franco is such an attention-seeker that he will do everything to remain in the spotlight, starting with turning into Ebenezer Scrooge this Christmas and blaming the Government for it.
His next step will be to tell his many supporters asking him to vote PN so that when/if PN is elected he will claim that he led the PN to victory. I hope the PN sees that this scenario is likely to happen.
He has been asked countless times who he thinks people should vote for in the next election, and he has always refused to answer. This should give us a flavour of further pleasures to come from him.
[Daphne – He has refused to answer because he plans on telling them to vote Labour, vote for him as an independent, or not vote at all. He said as much last Monday: “Those who want justice reformed can’t vote PN.”]
Either way, he certainly has something up his sleeve.
My theory still is that he plans to proclaim himself as saviour of justice in Malta.
Seeing that he hates Joseph’s guts more than he hates the Nationalists, he can only do this by trying once again to march through a PN government’s ranks.
Tinnat, are you sure he hates Joseph’s guts. I used to think that, not so sure anymore
“In the course of history quite a number of politicians with psychological problems have caused untold damage to their countries”.
Politicians with psychological problems only cause untold damage to countries if elected/reelected to power by the ordinary men (and women) in the street.
For this reason abstentions should be regarded as votes for the undesirables.
Agreed. There are grounds.
Norman Vella was verbally assaulted simply because he thought Franco can take hard talk.
He can’t, it was evident when the interviewer realised he had someone who doesn’t distinguish objective reality. All Norman could do, was to sit still and force himself passive to Franco’s fury. After all, if the hitlist was that long, why think he’d make an exception?
Hopefully, Peppi didn’t realise how things changed since the vote, to invite him. Remorse can be the killer.
Poor Norman Vella. How on earth, however, did he ever think that he could somehow bring his host to explaining himself and his ‘vision’.
I managed to see only bites of the programme – what with the cost of electricity and with the danger of having a stroke. What I saw, however, was enough to confirm my views about the total madness of the non-entity.
I agree with you totally. It was so uncomfortable watching his manic ranting on Monday. As you say so well, somebody should take him in hand for his own sake.
I can understand Franco Debono better than most. I too am full of bitterness and spite.
What people like us should avoid at all costs, however, are public appearances.
I chose a life of seclusion to shield everyone from my bile. He, on the other hand, went into politics. Bad combination that, unrealised ambitions and politics.
How sad Baxxter,and I thought you were so close to becoming a police inspector or maybe an army officer.
I cannot agreed more with you with respect to his manic state and the harm done to the PN.
But now, the more he speaks and the more PL parades him the more people realise, if there was ever any need, the extreme patience and gentlemanliness Dr. Gonzi has. Lest we forget, Franco was literally pestering Dr. Gonzi while the latter was in the midst of the Libyan crisis.
As somebody who actually voted for Franco, I cannot pity him albeit so evidently sick. Not after his betrayal.
In fact I am so pleased that he decided to press the self-destruct button. And the more he speaks, and yells and insults people, and refers to form IIC certificates and uses Labour networks, the better it will be for Dr. Gonzi and PN.
All Franco will be doing is taking votes away from the PN.
He knows that and that will be his mission in life.
I say Franco’s mental condition should be discussed.
A lot of Maltese people are mistaking his psychosis for passion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWTSTgvxOmk
The best thing is that he describes himself as calm.
Ken, how on earth can you say that all the non-entity will be doing is taking votes from the PN. PN – and floating voters – have long ago called his bluff!
Not all floating voters called his buff and if he ever manages to form a Franco Dee political party, he will siphon off votes that would have naturally gone to the PN.
Labourites are brainwashed enough to keep voting Labour from cradle to grave as the PL is like a badly drawn tattoo to them and just as permanent.
Malta is like the USA of today in the fact that it is always a two party system when it comes to politics and there is no room for a real third contender, just the flakey political parties that don’t really matter and only help to give a veneer of real democracy taking place but they do take away votes from the Democrats mostly.
Franco can become the Ralph Nader of Malta if he can ever get the financial backing to actually form a political party.. something I seriously doubt that he can pull off but you never know as he could become a useful idiot for some well heeled group or the PL itself while supporting him incognito for their own interest.
Dr. Debono is now as irrelevant to us as his constituents were to him in the last 5 years.
When a wise man has a controversy with a foolish man, the foolish man either rages or laughs,
Proverbs 29:9
Ha ha! Frankie the foolish one raged while gadget the foolish one laughed (his way through the debate with Dr.Simon Busuttil.
What I really, really would like to read is Joe Cassar’s analysis of the man. As a top notch psychiatrist and a cabinet member, he ought to have an interesting perspective of him.
My first public comment on Franco Debpno was that I would never have him in my team.
That was well before he started with his votes of no confidence on anyone who crossed his path, but after he had attracted my attention when I saw him, a lonely figure, strutting up and down Republic Street, looking over his shoulder as he talked, or pretended to talk, into his mobile phone.
Unfortunately for Gonzi, he did have Debono in his team, and he could not get rid of him because of his governmernt’s one seat majority in parliament.
There should be a lessen for political leaders to be extra careful whom they select as collaborators, and for voters to be more discriminating when casting their vote.
I totally agree with you on this one, Daphne.
He certainly does seem to have driven himself mad. I honestly do believe that in a year or so he will be so out of touch with reality that he will think he’s God and start a new religion.
The PL are making things worse for him and to be honest I think their exploitation of him is terrible.
They knew that Debono wouldn’t be put on Xarabank, either because the show wouldn’t allow it or Simon would have better things to do, so they sent him and then acted like they were surprised by the result.
It’s pretty rich for them to say that the PN are censoring Debono when they have a number of supporters who have tried their best to silence you, and who honestly think that once the PL are in power they will shut you down.
“The Labour Party, meanwhile, should have the good sense and the basic common decency to stop parading this unhappy, unwell individual on its television station”.
Yes, they SHOULD, but do you know them to have any good sense or common decency, ever?
Monday’s TVHemm was painful to watch. People like him should be treated by professionals, not paraded on national TV.
In the past we had Spiru Sant and Il-Farfett being paraded by a bunch of men who were out for a laugh, now we have Franco. The stark difference is that Spiru and Il-Farfett meant no harm to anyone, unlike Franco.
Franco reminds me of some of the worst dictators who thought they knew everything.
I have full respect for Spiru Sant and Il-Farfett.
I didn’t watch the Monday programme, nor would I have cared to so so.
Then on Tuesday, early afternoon in Valletta, Franco and I crossed paths at the intersection of Old Theatre Street and Republic Street, as I was going south and he was heading into Palace Square.
I hurried on my way south in front of him, in my surprise encounter, while Franco coutinued his due course into the square. What struck me first (after the person recognition) was the lonely man alone with his thoughts and seemingly at peace with himself in that loneness, as he slowly and resolutely walked and gazed straight ahead without acknowledging a soul (nor anyone seeking his autograph).
That was the surface. I can only imagine the psychology beneath–the rage, the turmoil, the disarray.
I did not want to scratch that surface, and I hurried past.
Dr. Gonzi did not have that choice as PM dealing with Franco. But we still have that choice, at last, when we hurry to vote in March.
I think you’re wrong to say he’s the past already whilst saying at the same time that he’s a maniac.
You can never tell what a maniac will do.
I suspect he may still return in the future in some form. It’s about him, him, him. Do you think he’ll really go away?
[Daphne – Well, one hopes that democratic safeguards will this time serve as a form of control, now that electors know what the problems are.]
Democratic safeguards? I wouldn’t count on it. There are plenty of plum posts for him in a future Labour administration: Chairman of some government agency, Attorney General, Speaker of the House, Ombudsman…
…Chairman of the Constitutional Reform, Chairman of the Commission for the Administration of Justice, Magistrate, Judge, Judge of the European Court of Human Rights, President of the Republic, EU Commissioner for Justice…
If you believe that you have seen it all, may I suggest you try to find a recording of yesterday’s ‘Mhux Billi Tghid’ on One.
Godfrey Grima – the independent journalist par excellence according to Kurt Farrugia – and company discussed this TVHemm episode, or rather the version of it that made it to their parallel universe, and how the newly elected Labour government should handle Norman, Peppi, and Bondi amongst others.
We know how Labour will handle these guys. People will be asking (literally): “Where’s everybody?”
Well. in an interview I think he said he might go to work in Italy, as it has always been his dream. Let’s hope so.
Well said. Debono’s mental state should be the sole focus of the media’s attention. He is ill, and badgering him for his behaviour is akin to badgering a paraplegic for their inability to walk. On a separate, rather disconcerting note, it is a sad reflection on the state of our politics that it has taken someone in his mental state to draw national attention to some genuine gaping holes in the fabric of our democracy.
I too agree with you. Last Monday’s TVM programme did indeed harm our political class and to some extent that section of the electorate that preferred this rebellion and irrational bloke instead of a distinguished politician whose professional abilities, as a consequence of that wrong choice,are being benefited in Luxembourg.
Baxxter, Labour will give Franco a plum job at its own peril.
I had an inkling of what was going on, and that is why I am full of admiration for Lawrence Gonzi.
The man swallowed his pride and remained focused on the real issues.
His self belief was channelled in the right direction whereas Franco’s led him to destruction.
Lino Spiteri and co interpret such a virtue as a weakness and a loss of dignity. To me they are the hallmark of a great man.
Was abroad and am looking for the debate between Simon and the now deposed deputy leader Anglu Farrugia and Debono TV Hemm presence but cannot find them. Can you upload them on your blog?
[Daphne – Not possible. Go to tvm.com.mt, select Live and then choose the date and time of the show.]