Cyrus Engerer can't damage Labour's reputation because it's bad enough already
We all have our peccadilloes, says Joseph Muscat - maybe he's worried that people will begin asking around for information in Brussels
Joseph Muscat has told The Sunday Times that he is unbothered by what Cyrus Engerer stands accused of doing, because it is a purely private and personal matter.
Really?
Why do I get the feeling that if Cyrus Engerer were still a rising star in the Nationalist Party, Super One would be grinding out the details of his police charges day and night, complete with pictures of gay porn with strategically placed black bits?
I can’t work out just how stupid or gullible you have to be to buy Joseph Muscat even at this late stage, when the gloss has long since worn off and his chief defining characteristic is his self-satisfaction.
Significantly, Cyrus Engerer has not held a press conference denying the accusations and vowing to clear his name. This means that he is in no position to do so.
So instead of clearing his name, he fights back, with the help of the really creepy Labour Party and sad old Malta Today, by trying to tarnish the names of others.
If the prosecuting officer told Engerer that it would all be over in five minutes, then this can mean one thing only: an open/shut case because Engerer gave a statement admitting the charges.
There is no other way it could all be over in five minutes.
This is the important point that people seem to be missing: Cyrus Engerer has done something very bad and crazily ill-judged and that is a reflection on his character. Hence, for a politician, it is not a private matter.
Had I known of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s personality problems before the general election, I would not have voted for him. I regard such personality problems as more worrying than anything else, more worrying even than Mistra.
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando lied to the prime minister about Mistra and then persuaded himself that he was the prime minister’s victim, and has since engaged himself in a three-years-and-counting campaign of vengeance against him.
His anger and vindictiveness towards his wife because of what she did to him remains undimmed all these years later and despite the fact that both have been long involved in other relationships. Just read the story in today’s The Sunday Times, where he says how much he is looking forward to filing for divorce.
True, his desire for extreme revenge on both the prime minister and his wife have given the country divorce legislation, but my, what a way to go about it and what a sour taste it has left behind.
The parallels in personality between Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Cyrus Engerer are rapidly becoming obvious. They are almost clones of each other. It is a shame that so many of us, not least me, discovered too late that the persuasiveness and talking skills which made them so effective initially are but the flipside of a manipulative and narcissistic personality.
As for Joseph Muscat and his beautiful tolerance for bad behaviour, perhaps he thinks that Dominique Strauss-Kahn should still be heading the IMF. After all, attacking a chambermaid in a hotel room and forcing yourself on her is a purely private and personal matter and has no bearing on how he runs the International Monetary Fund.
The fact that he has brought the IMF into disrepute would be irrelevant to Progressive Muscat. Well, perhaps he is right. The Labour Party’s reputation is so bad that a gay politician who himself perpetrates a homophobic attack on a former lover is as nothing compared to the rest.
Muscat thinks that there is nothing wrong with the behaviour of people like Cyrus and Jeffrey not just because they are both in his fold and serving his cause – he believes – but because he has a similar personality himself. He understands them.
We’re talking here of a man who built his success on the failure of his mentor, who made him his personal protege. We’re talking of a man who, when he needed a seat in parliament, targeted the weakest, most gullible and vulnerable individual, somebody who grew up in an orphanage, and talked him into sacrificing himself, then dumped him.
It was a textbook case of the spoilt rich kid taking cynical advantage of the boy from the underprivileged background, in the school playground, and whatever my personal views of Joseph Cuschieri’s abilities, it disgusted me. I’d have liked to have seen him try picking on a kid his own size.
We’re talking of a man so brazen that he demands the finance minister’s resignation for hitching a free ride in George Fenech’s plane when he and his prospective finance minister thought nothing of doing the same with Muammar Gaddafi’s. So a finance minister can’t take a free trip on a Maltese businessman’s plane, but a shadow finance minister and leader of the Opposition can take a free trip on Gaddafi’s. Both are wrong, but there is no doubt which was the worst. Sarkozy takes regular trips on his businessmen friends’ yachts, but when the news broke that a French politician had flown on Ben Ali’s plane during a trip to Tunisia, she was forced to resign.
People talk about looking at policies, but I think we’re all learning the hard way that we’ve first got to look at a person’s character and let their policies come a far second.
It all boils down to this: even his greatest enemies and denigrators cannot imagine that Lawrence Gonzi will let us down with something untoward in his closet.
But sadly, even the most enthusiastic supporters of Joseph Muscat can’t say the same with certainty about him. There is something there that is not quite right.
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Dr Muscat asserts that the PL now represents a wide section of the middle-class, yet he addresses those within his own party and others as a heap of bubbleheads.
Well to be honest, as to the rest in his party, they couldn’t really care less what he is saying. If what he says means grabbing power, than it must be good stuff.
I am filled with apprehension when I listen to or read what he says.
I can’t see any creative ideas. He just borrows heavily from the best of the Nationalist Party, without understanding what it’s all about because he is not convinced of it himself.
I simply don’t have faith in him.
Is there a chance that Dr. Franco Debono will claim in court that Cyrus Engerer was interrogated without access to a lawyer and on this basis he will claim the recent constitutional case to be acquitted in under 1 minute that the court case gets underway?
Dr. Debono is an expert on the matter.
[Daphne – No, because interrogees already had the right to consult a lawyer before interrogation at that time.]
Can anyone enlighten me :
Do offences such as the ones that Cyrus is being charged with carry a prison sentence?
[Daphne – Yes, but not necessarily.]
What amazes me is not the fact that we have a shallow and dangerous PM-in-waiting, but that so many people WANT to believe Muscat, put down their guard and become astonishingly gullible.
I listened to so many people declare that they don’t care if Muscat gets elected, that Muscat listens, etc.
I just wonder why they are so naïve – probably the fact is that, living in an island, people are extremely insular and detached from the real world.
Or it could be that they’re just plain stupid. Haven’t you thought of that?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110731/local/Muscat-defends-Cyrus-Engerer-Judge-him-on-his-track-record-.378036
Joseph Muscat defends Cyrus Engerer: ‘Judge him on his track record’.
We are judging him on his track record. He distributed intimate photos of his former lover to his boss and colleagues. This was a spiteful and vindictive act.
He is being accused of a criminal offence.
How low can he go.
I hope there is somebody in the LP with the guts to kick Joseph Muscat into his senses.
I’m sorry. Track record? What track record? Sliema local council? The police charges? I’m sorry, but the less said in this saga the better. They’re all self-inflicted problems.
The truth of the mater is that Joey, in his naivety, swallowed this Engerer charade hook, line and sinker.
I don’t know about you, but over the last couple of weeks, even plain words like ‘swallow’ have taken on a suggestive meaning. I find that I’m really watching what I say.
Yup, I choked when I read that too.
“I’d have liked to have seen him try picking on a kid his own size.”
I would have paid good money to see him ask Joe Debono Grech for his seat.
Of course the walls of Brussels know the stories…
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110731/world/iran-acid-attacker-will-not-be-blinded.378191
I can’t understand why they’re reporting this case all over the world when it’s a private and personal matter between a spurned suitor and the one who spurned him.
Ronnie, Labour and its propaganda machine is not, in their own mind, reporting this case all over the world.
They still think that this case is of interest only to Maltese living within the smalll boundaries of the island.
Most of them are still trying to grasp what internet is all about and many of them still live the Golden Years of Mintoff who never understood how a computer works.
I am still trying to comprehend Joseph Muscat’s logic in feeding to the dogs a gentleman like Dr Adrian Vassallo whilst seeming to defend and condone what Mr Cyrus Engerer is alleged to have committed.
The saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” comes to mind.
When was the last time a woman stabbed or strangled a man to death because she was scorned?
During his speech today, Muscat insisted that the MLP history should not be referred to or discussed anymore, since (according to him) the MLP “paid its dues”.
First of all,, he is not in a position to dictate what should be discussed or not.
Can you imagine the potential damage that this spoilt dictator-in-waiting can inflict once he becomes PM?
Secondly, the MLP did not “pay its dues” – I am not aware of any arrest of MLP officials, and thirdly, half of the MLP MPs were active in the MLP back in the 80s. A simple change of name and logo will not erase guilt or our memory.
Allow me to ride off on my trusty horse Tangent and observe that the Strauss-Kahn assault may not be an open an shut case. The whole thing is starting to look a bit shaky:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/nyregion/strauss-kahn-case-seen-as-in-jeopardy.html?_r=4
[Daphne – And still he was made to go.]
[…] his desire for extreme revenge on both the prime minister and his wife have given the country divorce legislation
Doesn’t that tell you anything about the “nature” of things?
Striving towards an end that appears good but which entails bad means to be achieved makes the whole endeavour bad.
[Daphne – Absolute rubbish. That what come of thinking like the more unenlightened variety of Catholic. You have your answer to that in the horrible debate about the fate of the conjoined twins from Gozo, some years ago. The unenlightened Catholics said both should die because the means of making one survive did not justify the end. Now go find that girl and tell her that she shouldn’t be alive or that her survival is intrinsically bad.]
if I were you I wouldn’t talk about things about which I don’t know the first thing … but then again, if people followed this simple rule Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t have felt the need to come up with his “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt”.
[Daphne – Oh, so you think both twins should have died because God said so. In that case, let’s agree to disagree. I never enter into arguments with believers because it’s pointless by definition.]
Nobody said that God offered an opinion on the matter – though frankly I don’t see what that’s got to do with the price of eggs.
What I’m saying is that one goes to the doctor for a diagnosis and to a bank manager for financial advice. If one were foolish enough to go about it the other way round, both bank manager and doctor would be better advised to confess ignorance rather than offer advice on something they don’t know much about.
And by the way …” his desire for extreme revenge on both the prime minister and his wife” means that Pullicino Orlando wants to exact revenge on Dr and Mrs Gonzi, rather than on Dr Gonzi and the former Mrs Pullicino Orlando.
[Reuben Scicluna – Striving towards an end that appears good but which entails bad means to be achieved makes the whole endeavour bad].
I see. So according to Reuben, just because Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando used “bad means” to achieve divorce legislation must mean that “the whole endeavour” of obtaining divorce legislation is bad, because according to his “logic”, that tells us something about the “nature of things”.
So the question to Reuben is this: Is the whole endavour of converting people to Christianity intrinsically bad, just because of the Crusades and the Inquisition?
I have to question your ability to use your 5whs again.
I agree with most of the principles you laid down. But I think that in attempting what you set out to do is beyond the scope of the “technique” – as is any technique based on scientific method.
Your technique will give you all the information you need, granted. But the information you collected can’t tell you whether or not it is intrinsically “good” or “bad”.
You can extrapolate any conclusion from any set of data (we’re assuming that the conclusion reached is logically and soundly derived from the data collected) but you can’t derive any “judgement” from it.
If you want to say “look, what X did is bad (or undesirable) because of this that and the other”, you’ll have to establish that “this, that and the other” are “universally” recognised as “bad” behaviour – something which is impossible for you to do as you reject all absolutes.
In a reply to a comment to an earlier post you had said something that I understood as “not all opinions are equal or equally valid.” True. But in your case nonsensical. If you reject an absolute ruler against which to measure “validity of opinion” you can’t be the judge of said validity.
Somebody (or should that be someone? – i keep confusing those two) may have read what Pullicino Orlando, Muscat and Engerer did and admired their guts (large intestine and all). You can’t take him (or her) to task for admiring an action that is inherently bad. Not least because the definition of bad (and good) you subscribe to in public is entirely subjective.
[Daphne – Yawn.]
you can yawn all you like. If you want to be taken seriously by people with more than half a brain you’ve got to see what your data can tell you and how you can extrapolate logically without “gut feelings” and “instincts” and “noses for this and that”. It’s what makes the difference between gossip at the butcher’s and serious discussion based on fact and inference based on fact.
[Daphne – I can’t see your point, Reuben. Are you somehow suggesting that perhaps Engerer didn’t email out pornographic photographs of his ex lover? You’ve lost me.]
[Reuben Scicluna – If you want to say “look, what X did is bad (or undesirable) because of this that and the other”, you’ll have to establish that “this, that and the other” are “universally” recognised as “bad” behaviour – something which is impossible for you to do as you reject all absolutes].
I think what he’s saying is that, assuming you reject all moral absolutes, you cannot say that what Engerer did is wrong without contradicting your rejection of moral absolutes.
What he’s saying is that if there are no moral absolutes, then emailing pornographic pictures of your ex-lovers is morally subjective, and not inherently wrong.
Of course, this is faulty logic, since it is he who is not keeping in mind all the relevant facts before coming to his conclusion.
For instance, I can think of a morally justified reason for emailing pornographic pictures of one’s ex-lover – for instance if a terrorist threatens you with killing thousands of children if you fail to do so.
However, the facts of this particular case are that no one forced Engerer to do what he did, and he only did it out of spite or revenge.
So, even if one were to reject all moral absolutes, this does not mean that one cannot determine the morality of a specific case, given the relevant facts. And Daphne has stated (more than once) all the relevant facts.
No gut feelings, dear Reuben. Just informed reason and logic.
Is this is in the current Philosophy Intermediate paper then?
“You are in a gay relationship, and are quietly watching Al Jazeera when a video by Ayman Al-Zawahiri comes on. He is reported as saying that Al Qaeda will kill one thousand children unless you send photographs of your lover betraying you by having sex with his current lover. What should you do? Discuss the moral and philosophical implications of your decision in not less than 10000 words. Points will be deducted for mentioning kiwis.”
@ H. P. Baxxter:
In not less than 10,000 words?
That Joseph Muscat actually thinks that a political party candidate’s vindictive illegal distribution of pornographic pictures of an ex-loveris a private matter, confirms my belief that Joseph Muscat is the worst thing that could have happened to Labour.
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=11847
For once, Maltastar was spot on in its title.
Cyrus Engerer will find that he will have to mature quickly if he plans to survive in politics within Labour.
Everybody keeps going on about the timing of the actual leak in relation to Cyrus leaving the PN, from the standpoint of him jumping ship THEN all hell breaking loose.
Has anyone considered that Cyrus jumped ship knowing the sh.t was about to hit the proverbial fan?
A lot of the heat for what he has allegedly done has been deflected by the questions about who leaked what, when and why.
If he was still within the PN and this news broke then all we’d be talking about is his (alleged) transgressions.
This Cyrus saga stinks. Could it be that his abrupt deflection from his party was planned and timed in such a way that knowing that his GAMES were soon to emerge, he found the correct time to resign and create an image of a ‘miskin x’ghamlulu ghax mar mal-Labour.
His looks aren’t quite right and nor is what is between his ears. He is so pathetic. I love the way you show them up for what they are – wannabes.
[…] his desire for extreme revenge on both the prime minister and his wife have given the country divorce legislation.
Prosit! That’s a deep insight how our underground horned friend works his way!
A bit late for this particular post but I thought I’d post this link anyway:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/media-ignores-couple-who-saved-40-in-norway-massacre-.html