SECRETARY FOR Security Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee has a penchant for transforming a cutting one-liner from comedian Groucho Marx into a real-life drama. Take, for example, his classic comment: AAPolitics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.''
After belittling student protesters as a AAheadache'' and denigrating the media by drawing an analogy to the dictatorial pig Napoleon in George Orwell's novel Animal Farm, Mrs Ip has now launched an attack on the comic book, Broom-head, which pokes fun at her.
Ironically, Mrs Ip, whose sensitivity to being lampooned is well known, decided to take her case to the media by submitting for publication her own article, headlined AAVictimised by gender'' (South China Morning Post, August 7), in which she complained that Broom-head was full of sexist attacks.
She said such female political leaders as former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and current Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had never been subject to systematic attacks on the basis of their appearance. She went on to declare that Hong Kong was running the risk of becoming AAa city with first-world infrastructure but substandard ethics and manners''.
First of all, it is debatable whether Hong Kong really has first-world infrastructure, given the spate of construction scandals at government-owned housing sites. But, in any case, Mrs Ip has missed the point.
The various women to whom she points rose to prominence within democratic political structures. Elected leaders can be voted out of office Mrs Ip cannot.
Democracy is a concept missing from the SAR Government's canon. So making jokes at the expense of our top officials is about the only means we have of expressing discontent and a very mild method it is.