Remember that Lm1,200 cheque, Muscat?
Joseph Muscat did his Moses Down From the Mount act again the other day, all fire and brimstone and righteous indignation. His target this time was Austin Gatt, one of the only few government ministers who has ever got anything done. But given the mentality of Muscat and whining snipers across the board, it’s better to be nice and not arrogant and get nothing done, than to be brusque and abrupt and get results – because perceived arrogance is intolerable but real incompetence is forgivable, according to the vast and serried ranks of losers in our midst.
Muscat, of course, is suffering from a bad case of projection. If there is one arrogant, jumped-up, presumptuous twerp in this country, it’s him. Here’s one of the best bits from his rant, in reported speech from the newspapers.
Dr Gatt was the minister under whom all chairmen of boards, authorities and corporations resigned or left. He symbolised arrogance and whatever a government should not be, he symbolised a party in its worst form, a party whom the Court had just found guilty of lying against MP Silvio Parnis in an orchestrated campaign against him.
The Nationalist Party’s Sunday newspaper has been found to have libelled Gel Man Silvio Parnis, he of the red plastic roses, and Muscat is up on his high horse smiting the craven worshippers of Baal. That’s rich. That’s very rich, coming from the leader of a political party whichhas been sued successfully for libel a zillion times. It is particularly rich coming from the mouth of the very man who was obliged by the courts to send me a cheque for Lm1,200 after he wrote an extremely libellous book about the P2, the Mafia and the Brigate Rosse and stuffed my name and face inside. Actually, he went Dutch with the MLP after I slapped a warrant of seizure on their bank accounts, all of which were empty until we finally found Lm600 in one of them. Joseph Muscat tas-Super Wan, jitkaza because somebody has libelled somebody else? U hallina, Joe, il-vera poxt u redikolu.
And here’s some more, said in the vein of Jesus casting the merchants out of the temple, with a straight face and Spettur Anglu Farrugia by his side.
Dr Muscat warned Dr Gatt and the Prime Minister that this was political intimidation. The MLP, he said, would defend the people’s right of affiliation. “To touch just one citizen, you have to trample over us and, trample over us you will not!” he said.
Il-veru kaz.
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Heh… hadn’t heard the word ‘poxt’ for a while.
[Daphne – Really? It’s a very good and useful word.]
Daphne – I know, but it seems that we’re losing some of our more colourful vocabulary. I definitely remember usage of such words being much more common especially in rural areas a couple of decades ago.
I love colourful language. It gives character to one’s speech :P
LOL why don’t you fly a kite, Gowzef instead of a model whotsit..
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081121/local/boys-gonzi-and-muscat-take-to-flying
The man is beyond belief (that’s Gowzef not Wistin). He epitomises everything that is wrong with him as well as the party he leads so badly. He has no idea how to discuss anything in depth, he is always superficial, both in content and delivery, and most of all the guy has no style. Sadly he thinks otherwise.
Have a good weekend all.
“Whitewashed tombs” doesn’t quite convey the same nuance of meaning, does it?
Looks like Gowzef is taking fashion lessons from Jaysin. Check out the shoes:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/falzonmichael/2463875156/in/photostream/
[Daphne – Yes, we had discussed this at length back in May. My advice was: never wear brown shoes with black trousers, especially when you have short legs. What you need is a clean visual line from waist to toe.]
kemm saru qadddisin f daqqa wahda tal labour .Aktar il quddiem naraw x jghid sehibna joe wara li jkunu decisi it 13 il libell li hemm fuq dak il famus poster
Nhaseb li jkollhom jorganizzaw programm fuq super 0ne biex jigbru l fondi ha jhallsu il multi
Austin Gatt perceived arrogance! Come on. It is arrogance as concentrated as it comes! U hallina Daphne, you completely lost your objectivity if you ever had it. Can you name me one country in the world which in current condition is putting up in eur terms their utility and fuel prices?
[Daphne – When the country puts up its fuel prices, it’s not a unilateral decision by one government minister, but a decision taken by the entire cabinet and signed off by the prime minister, with whom the buck stops. Gatt hasn’t made the decision. He is fronting it. He is the messenger and the one who has to implement it. And no. As somebody who understands the nuances of the English language very, very well, I do not think he is arrogant. I think he is brusque and rough, but I have never had a problem with that kind of behaviour, as long as it comes from people who are honest and clever. It is a form of straightforwardness, that’s all. I understand this form of communication because I, too, can be very much like that when I have things to do, very little time to do them in, and no patience for time-wasters who faff around physically or intellectually. And I too am wrongly described as arrogant, when what I am is impatient and sometimes very intolerant of other people’s shortcomings when they stand in the way of getting things done.
Arrogance is something else altogether. While aggressive self-assertion is a part of arrogance, the key factor, which sets arrogance apart from other forms of brusque behaviour, is presumptuousness. Without presumptuousness, there is no arrogance.You can say what you like about Austin Gatt, but to say that he is not aware of his personal limitations and presumptuously takes on jobs he is not fit to do is way off the mark. I hardly know him, having met him no more than a few times, but I am pretty good at observing people, and this is an observation. And that, too, is why people who describe me as arrogant are wrong. I may be extremely self-assertive, because I am self-confident and that’s not a crime, but I am anything but presumptuous. I am aware of my boundaries and my limitations, and I will never take on a job which I know can be done better by somebody else. I never say – u ejja, I’ll give it a go, after all if X can do it I can too.
The only political leaders in the public eye to whom the TRUE, DICTIONARY definition of arrogance applies are, sadly, Joseph Muscat, Toni Abela and Anglu Farrugia. They are aggressively self-assertive but wholly presumptuous and with no awareness of their personal and professional limitations. You look at them and think, my God, they actually believe they’ve got what it takes to run the country, when to the trained outside eye they are just a travelling circus.]
re the “libellous book about the P2, the Mafia and the Brigate Rosse and stuffed my name and face inside” – how did the twerp make the connections?
[Daphne – He didn’t. That was the whole point of the libel suit. There was a full page photo of me, and an accompanying description of me and my ‘friends’. Anybody flicking through would have assumed that I was part of La Piovra.]
just for curiosity sake daphne why lm 1200 for you and 12000 euros for parnis ? why is it that the labour people are getting such hi libel awards . Ask Balzan why on appeal Mintoff was awarded LM 3000
[Daphne – At the time, it was one of the biggest awards. The fines began to escalate recently. Instead of relaxing our draconian and anti-free speech interpretation of the libel laws, we are heading in the opposite direction. The question is not why Labour people, but why do this at all. Silvio Parnis clearly had a case, because the article about him dealt in facts, but I have been fined FOR MY OPINION BASED ON FACT, ON THE GROUNDS THAT THIS EXPOSES THE PUBLIC FIGURE TO RIDICULE. One case was lost even on appeal. Of course, there is the option of taking it to the Constitutional court, and from there to the European Court. And the next time this happens, that is exactly what I will do. Our laws, taken at their strictest interpretation, do not allow us to ridicule public figures. Most magistrates, like the judges before them, realise that they cannot take matters so far, but there is one magistrate who does, and he interprets the law literally.]
Are you arguing that we should take a strict constructionist view of the law when interpreting libel judgments? Shows how truly liberal most people are around here. Liberal only when it suits their principles and objectives. It also looks like this anti-JM crusade has a personal feud to it.
[Daphne – Why, Gerald? And what makes it a crusade? I imagine you believe that the only politicians who can be criticised legitimately are the ones in government.]
Toni Abela is actually quite a good lawyer as his bulging list of clients from all walks of life can testify. but on this blog you probably have to be Nationalist to be a good lawyer. Anyway there are several examples of top class legal minds on the Opposition benches.
[Daphne – It is precisely his clients who you should ask for information on whether he is a good lawyer on not. Unlike you, I have access to that kind of information.]
[Daphne – Unlike you, I have access to that kind of information.]
In other words, most people are at a disadvantage when in discussion with you because, most, as mere mortals, lack such an access. :(
[Daphne – Not at all. This happens to be one subject area with which, indirectly, I am very familiar. There are lawyers on this blog who would be more familiar still. My point was that I am more likely to know whether Toni Abela serves his clients well than Gerald does. There are some areas, on the other hand, where Gerald would have far more information than I do.]
@ pportelli. Utility prices are set to rise by 10 to 20% here in Austria, ON TOP OF REALISTIC, UNSUBSIDIZED, RATES.
That’s the whole point and problem in Malta. Rates were unrealistic and subsidized by taxpayers for decades and now that the government has decided to bite the bullet and start charging realistic prices it’s the end of the world for the many amongst us Maltese who believe in the fairytale that we should pay what we want to pay, and not what the cost is.
That’s REAL arrogance.
Yet again I seem to have been misunderstood. i was just stating a fact that Toni Abela is known to be quite a good lawyer around. Nothing personal or secret about that after all.
As for utility prices, nobody said these should come cheap. But let us not forget that the Nats came to power in 1998 on the back of the hike in utility prices and had to keep these at unrealistic rates for a decade else be accused of political hypocrisy. Then they froze the surcharge at 50 per cent for a year again for political means. No wonder enemalta is so much in the red. The chickens have come home to roost.
Daphne you tried hard but you only proved that you are as arrogant as Minister Austin Gatt. As your mirror image you can nly see virtues in him. On the contrary I can see virtues as much as vices.
You both start from the assumption that all Labourites are idiots and that the PN, warts and all, are better than those bunch of stupids whom you do your utmost to ensure they stay as eternal opposition.
Justifying increased utility and fuel tariff just when oil is plummeting and not admitting that it is mere political ploy to make up for the artificial feel good factor which led to the PN’s election victory is vintage arrogance!
[Daphne – They’re definitely better. That’s why I vote for them: because I can’t envisage, ever, a situation in which any deputy leader of the Nationalist Party stands up at a mass meeting and reads out a fanciful letter from Barack Obama, or votes in a clodhopper like Anglu Farrugia. Or an arrogant pr**k like Joseph Muscat. No, I don’t think all Labourites are idiots. I reserve that description for the political party they support. Most of those who vote Labour do so out of family persuasion and tradition, not rational analysis, and that’s a very powerful tug. Same with those who support the Nationalist Party, except that I don’t count myself among them, and many others don’t. either – because on the basis of rational analysis, and without prejudice, that’s the party one’s brain goes for.]