Pak Lah's betrayal of UMNO - Are we gullible? Have we forgotten?

Its has been more than three years since I lodged that police report against the country's 5th Prime Minister and UMNO's 6th President, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and publish the book "UMNO Dikhianati"; thus underscoring a popular aura of a leader with doubtful political and moral standings. However, recent developments, as highlighted by the mainstream media at least, somehow reeks of efforts at embellishing, thus refurbishing, Abdullah's irreparably tarnished image. Why so? Are there vested interests within the current UMNO status quo leaderships purposely riding on Pak Lah's legacy for future political expediency? In this, and as far as Tok Bongkok is concerned, it is about time that the teeming UMNO grassroots hold fast to the old Malay adage: jangan bermain dengan api or jangan sampai berbuah dua kali; and also borrowing from the now infamous satirical chant derived from a poem by our much celebrated Statesman, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad: Melayu mudah lupa...Melayu mudah lupa...Melayu mudah lupa. Are we such a gullible lot for failing to realize that it took Pak Lah his mere five-year term as the country's no. 1 helmsman to erode UMNO's political ascendancy; a feat that took the raucous oppositions decades since Independence. The legacy of Pak Lah's weak and incompetent leaderships has to a certain degree not only weakened UMNO but have in more than one way eroded the very foundation of the hitherto successful consociational politics of plural Malaysia, as represented by the Barisan Nasional (BN). The unprecedented poor showing by the UMNO-led BN during the nation's 12th General Elections of March 2008, when Pak Lah was at the coalition's helm, should have by now serve as a sobering testimony to such an unpopular leadership. Among other things, Pak Lah's clumsy experiment with blatant democratic liberalism or openness of the West has not only weakened UMNO but have in many ways threatened to render impotent the other component parties of the ruling coalition that inherently represents the nation's multi-racial set-up. Though we understandably opted to deny it, political insecurity and fretfulness is now virtually the order of the day within the nation's status quo body politics. Thanks but no thanks to Pak Lah, Malaysia as we all knew it, will never be the same again. Instead of the futile attempt at white-washing the tainted image of one incompetent and failed leader, UMNO, and BN as a whole, should be better off reinventing itself to the period pre-Pak Lah, lest we are prepared to face another humiliation, or even, Allah forbids, abject defeat at the hands of the opposition, come the 13th General Elections.