Deconstructing Tulsathit Taptim: I'm a Thai Reporter; Truth is Irrelevent

The Nation:

What's interesting, though, is how the partisans treat the respective scenarios. If you are pro-Abhisit, you tend to believe he was in the car, but you wouldn't lose sleep if there was evidence that he was in fact hiding somewhere else. If you are pro-red, of course, the ambush was staged - but if government politicians had died, it would have been a revolution going out of control.


And what if Abhisit wasn't in the car but the red shirts attacked it in the belief that he was? Does that make their whole action less heinous?


On the other hand, if he was in the car but the attack was staged, does this mean the red shirts "lied" to the public by claiming he wasn't in it?


Whatever the truth is, the "ambush" was an outgrowth of a symptom that has never been properly treated. It won't do either side any good to provoke a debate on something that senseless. After all, if people had cared about right and wrong, the controversial incident would not have happened in the first place.


We should let bygones be bygones; not that we can do anything about them, though. What matters is how we can haul ourselves up after sinking that low. Finding out how the attack was carried out will not help, as it was an act executed at the height of a nasty battle in which many dirty tactics were employed. Only when we can answer the question "why" it happened will there be a light at the end of the tunnel.


Some say that Thais were lucky, reasoning that with the military and police split and seeming ready to switch allegiance - while shadowy elements were lurking in the background - last month could have easily been the most tragic period in our modern political history. If we really were that fortunate, the question is whether we realise it.


Maybe it's time we ignored all the intrigues. Of course, it's fascinating to discuss who planted the "car bomb" purportedly intended to kill Thaksin Shinawatra, or who wanted to assassinate his arch-rival Sondhi Limthongkul, or whether or not Abhisit was in that black Mercedes, but political mysteries in Thailand are mostly meant to exploit, not puzzle, us. If you want some fun putting together the jigsaw pieces, fine, but never fall into the trap by taking these things too seriously.


I read something like this and wonder why the hell Tulsie is even a journalist.

I have been blogging for two and a half years now and it never ceases to amaze how The Nation's columnists ignore the basic tenets of journalism: Who, what, why, when and where.

They can't even get that right. There isn't even a pretense of real journalism.

Instead, they live in the world of pontificating and conspiracy theory development based on asking questions that they are either too lazy or too incompetent to answer by doing basic reporting.

Uh, maybe it is important to find out what the facts, so people know the truth as it exists.

Cognitive dissonance exists, indeed, but that is no excuse for a major metropolitan newspaper to just throw up its hands in resignation and leave important questions unanswered.

Let's see: Was there an assassination attempt on the prime minister or was there a conspiracy to frame the Reds?

Tulsie doesn't think political assassinations of major figures are major stories. Anywhere else in the civilized world this would be a major story. You decide.