Why the health minister has been singled out for special targetting

Published: January 20, 2012 at 1:05am

Joe Cassar: the prime minister has several crackpots on his hands, but luckily, he's also got a psychiatrist in the cabinet

Will the Office of the Prime Minister please distinguish between what it calls ‘personal attacks’ and actual lies?

Those who are in the kitchen have to learn how to deal with the heat (and not by whining that it should stop) or just butt out.

When you’re on the public pay-roll and asking for people’s votes, expect criticism, even the kind which hurts.

It goes with the territory, it’s democracy, and it might not be nice but it’s essential.

Lies and slander, on the other hand, are a different matter altogether.

Lies are lies. Slander is slander.

Everyone who is lied about and slandered is right to object, public pay-roll or not, votes or not. And the law is on their side, though its wheels grind very slowly.

When the Office of the Prime Minister criticised the stories being put about by the Labour Party, on the subject of Health Minister Joe Cassar, it should not have described them as ‘personal attacks’. It should have avoided clouding and confusing the issue, by condemning them as outright slanderous lies.

‘Personal attacks’ – will somebody please define what this means? – are legal, legitimate and entirely justifiable when the subject is a politician, a legislator, a minister and on the public pay-roll. Lies and slander, however, are not. They are illegal, illegitimate, and not justifiable in any way, not even if these are the only means Labour can think of to get into power quickly.

There is another difficulty here. The Office of the Prime Minister can’t explain WHY Minister Joe Cassar is now being singled out for special targetting by the Labour Party, which has taken its cue from that tedious man, Franco Debono.

But I have absolutely no problem telling you myself. Cassar is a psychiatrist. Before he joined the cabinet, he was one of Malta’s busiest psychiatrists. In the cabinet, he has almost certainly been kept busy as a consultant psychiatrist too – in an unofficial capacity, of course, because he’s had to let go of his professional practice.

The prime minister has had a few crackpots on his hands these last four years, and so who better to turn to for advice on how to diagnose them and cope with them (I would imagine…)?

And Franco probably found out and didn’t like it. So now he’s snarling at Minister Cassar, to add to his growing list of ministers he hates.




7 Comments Comment

  1. Sarah says:

    That explains it thanks.

  2. mario farrugia says:

    I see … thanks

  3. ciccio says:

    Daphne, I agree with your excellent analysis of the matter.

    Meanwhile, the progressives and moderates are gathering on the comments-board at Maltastar to show their envy and hatred, while Joseph Muscat tells the businessmen that Labour is safe for them.

  4. Paul Bonnici says:

    Health Minister Joe Cassar is a kind, compassionate gentleman. He treated a member of my family with professional expertise and above all with great empathy.

    Only the wicked and the sick could attack such a gentle and upright person. Whoever is doing this will have it backfire on him.

    • Antoine Vella says:

      Paul, the “wicked and the sick” and the brainwashed Mintoffjani.

      I’ve known the minister since he was a “student-worker” and he embodies all that is desirable in a politician.

  5. lZammit says:

    Minister Joseph Cassar is an honest gentleman. If there are a 100 gentlemen in Malta, then he is one of them.

  6. J Abela says:

    Joe Cassar was also elected for the first time in the last general election on the 7th district. Many people voted for him, I think, at the expense of Pullicino Orlando who was more well known then but was coming across as a complete prat.

    Or at least that’s what I did and I’m still pleased with my choice.

    Now he is already minister and I think Franco is jealous of him because of this. But Cassar is where he is because he is hardworking, smart, intelligent and a team player yet he is HUMBLE.

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