Well they completely don't get it ....

I was laughing my head off at the barber yesterday while reading this at The Star. Got a few raised eyebrows from the other patrons. Shared the article with another guy sitting next to me, and he laughed as well. Well shows me that that I am not the only one that found this funny.

I’ll reproduce this just in case the link gets deleted after 7 days.

“Sunday November 9, 2008
Don’t get carried away with Obama, says Annuar

KOTA BARU: Kelantan Umno liaison chairman Tan Sri Annuar Musa has urged Malaysians not to get carried away with Barrack Obama, as “we have our own leaders to admire and our issues to resolve”.

“I see people wearing Obama T-shirts. While it is good, let us not get carried away with what happened in other nations.

“I also prefer if people could wear T-shirts bearing Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, soon to be our next Prime Minister and Umno president,” he said at the opening of the Ketereh Umno division delegates meeting yesterday.

Annuar, who was returned unopposed as the division head, said Najib had displayed traits of nationalism of Umno founder Tun Onn Jaafar and the long-term foresight of his late father, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein.”

C’mon, go ahead … laugh your head off. I did … just barely managed to put my head back on after that serious laugh.

Oh puhleeez, it’s not just because I am one of those possibly tagged as “carried away by Obama”, which I may be, that I found that statement funny. But it just points out the fact that Annuar completely lost the point, as he often does. It’s one of those statements that imply if we have more interest in politics of other countries we cease to be patriotic. This is one of those self-righteous crap often yelled at us that really throws us off the local politicos.

To most I’ve talked to, what fascinates us about this year’s Presidential race is due to a couple of possibilities.

Maybe the fact that the United States actually chose whomever they want as President irrespective of “the colour if his skin, but the content of his character” (to paraphrase Martin Luther King). Maybe to some the ‘novelty’ of actually selecting the leader of your country as opposed to someone some party selects as the one to be your leader, is much more attractive and therefore attracts more attention. Maybe due to the fact that the person in question did not have to resort to making money on commissions and kickbacks from contracts to build his ‘war chest’ to campaign for this position, but just from getting ordinary people to believe in him (ultimately to be proven rightly or otherwise). Maybe its due to the fact that what impressed them in the fact that in making this choice, they actually felt good about making that choice, as opposed to making a choice simply because we need to punish the one in power like what we did in March 2008. Maybe it’s due to the fact that banal “support at all cost”, stupid statements are ridiculed over there as opposed to being carried on Page 1 in most mainstreams down here.

Whatever the reason, the biggest mistake UMNO is making is belittling the ‘interest’. In not recognising what is good in a successful campaign, it closes its eyes to what is needed by the citizen of a State. It shuts out what people are really hungry for. Basically, they simply are asking for a chance to make a difference in their lives. Something unfortunately the present leadership (if you can call it that) completely do not understand.