It’s been sometime since I visited Rajdeep
Sardesai’s Friday Blogbusters. The latest one is called “Don’t play it safe”. I am quite
impressed how he describes Salman
Khurshid. I call SK a smooth double talker, Rajdeep describes him thus: “Salman
Khurshid is easily among the brightest politicians in the country: a former
Oxford don, he became a union minister at 38. When he speaks, it is with a
certain elegance and intellect that is all too rare in public life today”. NO!
You don’t get any prizes for guessing – it’s about SK’s comment about Rahul Gandhi’s cameo. Remember Sarah Palin? On November 1, 2008 just
three days before the presidential election she got a call from French
President Nicolas Sarkozy. Here are
excerpts from that phone conversation:
PALIN: Oh, it's so good to
hear you. Thank you for calling us.
SARKOZY: Oh, it's a
pleasure.
SARKOZY: You see, I got
elected in France because I'm real and you seem to be someone who's real, as
well.
PALIN: Yes, yeah. Nico, we
so appreciate this opportunity.
SARKOZY: You know I see you
as a president one day, too.
PALIN: Maybe in eight years.
SARKOZY: Exactly, we could
try go hunting by helicopter like you did. I never did that. Like we say in
French, on pourrait tuer des bebe phoque s, aussi .
PALIN: Well, I think we
could have a lot of fun together while we're getting work done. We can kill two
birds with one stone that way.
SARKOZY: I just love killing
those animals. Mmm, mmm, take away life, that is so fun. I'd really love to go,
so long as we don't bring along Vice-President Cheney.
PALIN: No, I'll be a careful
shot, yes.
SARKOZY: Yes, you know we
have a lot in common also, because except from my house I can see Belgium.
That's kind of less interesting than you.
SARKOZY: Thank you very
much. You know my wife Carla would love to meet you, even though you know she
was a bit jealous that I was supposed to speak to you today.
PALIN: Well, give her a big
hug for me.
SARKOZY: You know my wife is
a popular singer and a former top model and she's so hot in bed. She even wrote
a song for you.
PALIN: Oh my goodness, I
didn't know that.
SARKOZY: I just want to be
sure. That phenomenon Joe the Plumber. That's not your husband, right?
PALIN: That's not my husband
but he's a normal American who just works hard and doesn't want government to
take his money.
SARKOZY: Yes, yes, I
understand we have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France. It's called
Marcel, the guy with bread under his armpit.
SARKOZY: Gov. Palin, I love
the documentary they made on your life. You know Hustler's Nailin' Paylin?
PALIN: Well, good.
SARKOZY: I really loved you
and I must say something also, governor, you've
been pranked by the Masked Avengers. We are two comedians from Montreal.
Even when the comedians refer to Hustler’s
Nailin Palin she doesn’t remotely get an inkling she’s being pranked. That
happens to be a porn video by Hustler with a Palin look-alike. Listen to the
full prank-call on YouTube
and read the transcripts HERE.
Fortunately for RG comedians and ordinary people don’t have such access to him,
else he would have been pranked many times over. Even otherwise the number of
jokes based on his silly utterances so far would have exceeded those made about
any other politician so far in Indian political history. The Twitter hashtags
#RahulFacts #YoRahulSoDumb far outnumber the jokes about Palin. Look them up
and enjoy.
This is the reason I find it extremely stupid that media celebs, many
of whom have studied in Oxford or Cambridge, cannot see RG for what he is and
still expect he will take up great challenges. Listen to Rajdeep again: “That
leaves, frankly, Rahul Gandhi as the only mascot available to a party in
crisis. Unfortunately, rather than see opportunity in adversity, Rahul has
chosen to play it safe …. As a start,
how about becoming the party leader in the Lok Sabha, a post lying vacant with
Pranabda’s exit”? Now tell me, how is this very observant and Numero Uno political analyst (Certified
as Numero Uno by India’s leading Scientist Sagarika Ghose) seeing anything
different than the cronies and sycophants in the Congress? Leader of the
Congress in Loksabha? Haha! RG’s record in the LS is perhaps the Koran for
Rajdeep. What else can explain the foolish suggestion to make him the Congress
party’s LS leader? One hand Rajdeep talks about young leaders in Congress and
like the sycophants his best option is a bimbo. And for all his lament, he and
his channel were the one who awarded RG the sham “Indian of the year” award in
2009. If you were the CEO would you hire Rajdeep as a talent-spotter in your
organisation?
The only type of people Congress breeds is sycophants, not leaders.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop at the party level. This extends to the media
and includes Rajdeep, Vinod ‘Smirk’
Sharma, Shekhar Gupta and who
can forget Barkha Darwin herself.
Every time elections are around I expect one more instalment of her effort to “evolve” RG. Admire her perseverance. So
if RG hasn’t still fully got the message that he’s India’s Sarah Palin it’s not
his party or Digvijay Singh or Khurshid to blame. It is the media crooks who
hope against hope that he will somehow evolve into the Great White hope.
Rajdeep talks about Rajiv Gandhi as PM at 40 and other younger presidents in
the US. For all the history that the media celebs study in Oxford and Cambridge
they don’t seem to remember that the youngest PM ever was William Pitt at age 24, who went on to lead Britain as PM for 17
years. Leadership qualities aren’t acquired at 40. They are acquired at a much
earlier age and demonstrated beyond doubt.
It is not these media celebs alone who want RG to take up a ‘Larger’ role (to quote another nosey starlet)
there are even those ‘intellectuals’
who write open letters to him to take up “Tomorrows
Battles”. How else do you explain a Think-Tanker like Pratap Bhanu Mehta writing that open letter almost exhorting
Rahul to lead his generation? Rajdeep also complains RG doesn't talk to the media. Is that so? I guess he's already forgotten the wonderful breakfast he had with RG, even tweeting that he had to suddenly rush to that secret breakfast press-meet of his. Any editor worth his salt would have declined such a rendezvous but our editors rushed to that silly meet. Then, some of them dropped tidbits from that meet to the public like crumbs from the table. So much for media's integrity. That's not RG's fault, it's mere coincidence that he also happens to live on 'Tughlak' street.
The biggest problem with people like Rajdeep Sardesai and others is
that they cannot even assess the Congress party without a reference to other
parties. Invariably, the mess in the Congress has to be measured against the
mess in BJP, NDA etc. Why should a party supposedly called the GOP be measured
against others who have come in many years later? Isn’t there good enough cause
to measure the sycophancy and dynastic nonsense on sound principles of organised
political parties? All this talk when
none of the media crooks wouldn’t even dare to write about Sonia Gandhi, her
illness, her secrecy or question her leadership. Fact is backseat driving
does not work in political leadership or any kind of leadership. To talk about
RG accepting greater responsibilities or role is to talk about another puppet
instead of Manmohan Singh. If the media really wants to assess the real issues
with the Congress it has to start with the top and that top is only one person;
Sonia Gandhi. The scared chickens
instead of nailing Sonia Gandhi’s failures juggle with words instead of balls to
find something to lament. Salman Khurshid is not an intelligent or
courageous man. If he had guts he should have said about Sonia Gandhi what he
said about RG.
Rajdeep and other cronies of Congress in the media can stop washing fake issues. Unlike these celebs, cartoonists say it a lot better with a simple
picture. No matter how much they plead, exhort, holler and have wet dreams about
Rahul Gandhi, he has repeatedly proved only one thing that Satish Acharya
demonstrates in his cartoon – It’s hard
to imagine a Ward Boy playing doctor. RG might have played the
doctor-doctor games as a kid probably but something has to be mentally wrong to be playing games at
42. That mental part is equally true for Rajdeep & Co.
PS: Sarah Palin is not running for President in 2012. And Sarkozy isn’t
President of France anymore either. Sad!
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