One side cried. The other side laughed. There's no rule in politics that says you can't kick losers when they're down. New People's Party chairwoman Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee is tough as nails but cried uncontrollably during an interview. Business and Professionals Alliance vice-chairman Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung failed to fight back tears in front of the cameras. Yes, men cry too. And women know where to kick men when they're down. Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau Wai-hing smirked, gloated, and laughed on television the day Lam and his Beijing-loyalist colleagues made bozos of themselves with a botched walkout to delay the vote on political reform. You may remember James Tien Pei-chun as the then Liberal Party head who got thrown out of China's top political advisory body last year for asking Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to resign. He laughed too the day after the walkout during a radio interview. Tien and his party colleagues didn't join the walkout, partly causing it to be botched. He is now a hero in the anti-loyalist camp. Smart man, Tien. He's honed a fine line between hating Leung and proving his loyalty to Beijing. To be fair, last week's sloppy attempt to buy time with a walkout so an ailing Lau Wong-fat, who's past his sell-by date, could arrive to vote was comedic. But when the laughing and crying is done, what next? Soul-searching? Can Hong Kong soul-search when it has a split psyche? Half of us see communist China as the evil empire that wants to swallow up our way of life; the other half sees it as the benevolent motherland which wants only the best for its returned child. We're all in deep political poop. And we'll sink deeper into it every time our politicians talk through their rear ends. Civic Party legislator Claudia Mo Man-ching did that at last week's debate when she called mainland officials goons and said Beijing's framework for democracy resembled that of North Korea. Public Eye dares Mo to go to North Korea and call officials there goons. The fact Hongkongers can freely mock our political system proves we're nothing like that oppressive regime. But it takes brains to understand that.

Ronny Tong Ka-wah believes there's a third way. That's why he's quit the radical-leaning Civic Party and his Legco seat to carve out a middle path between extremist and slavishly loyalist politics. The Democratic Party's Albert Ho Chun-yan believes in only one way - his way. That's why he wants to quit his so-called super seat in Legco to trigger a by-election which would double as a city-wide referendum on what kind of democracy Hongkongers want. The rules say those who quit can't run again immediately, so why don't Ho and Tong put up protégés to go head to head in a super-seat poll so Hongkongers can decide which way is right?