Out on Bail

That the sum of the parts is sometimes unequal to the whole was illustrated
by the former Malaysian Prime Minister's endorsement of John Kerry. In the
article

Mahathir asks Muslims to vote out Bush, the Malaysian leader addresses an
open letter to the American ummah.

In an open letter sent to the community, believed to number seven million,
the former prime minister said during the past four years of the Bush
presidency, the Muslims and their countries had suffered oppression and
humiliation as never before in the history of Islam.

Kerry, the Malaysian leader conceded, may not be any different, but the
candidates for the presidency of the United States must be made aware that in
democratic America, Muslim citizens have a voice and can influence the
selection of the rulers of the country. �Bush has shown that despite his
protests, he is the cause of the tragedies in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq.
... There is no doubt that he will continue to do this if re-elected,� he told
American Muslims. He said he did not wish to dwell on the atrocities committed
against the Muslims and Islam, but would like to appeal to Muslim citizens and
voters of America to be united and to cast their votes against Bush, in the
name of justice, in the name of Islam. �You may not be numerous enough but in
marginal constituencies you can make a difference. It is your bounden duty to
send a message to candidates that they must be fair to all the communities in
the United States if they wish to rule the country. Even if you fail to unseat
Bush, you can at least reduce his majority,� concluded the message.

Mahatir Mohammed, it will be recalled, arrested his Deputy Prime Minister,
Anwar Ibrahim in 1998 for corruption and sodomy.
Wikipedia
has a succinct account of some of the court proceedings.

On September 29, 1998 Anwar appeared in court, bruised and with a
black-eye, and pleaded innocent to charges of corruption and sodomy. The Chief
Inspector of Inspector Tan Sri Rahim Noor later admitted to beating him while
he was blindfolded and chained to a prison bed, and was eventually sentenced
to two months in jail. Anwar Ibrahim alleges that it was this beating that led
to his future life-threatening back problems. The black eyed Anwar with one
hand raised became a symbol of the political opposition appearing in many
posters advocating reformasi.

His wife continued the political struggle starting the "National Justice
Party" (Parti Keadilan Nasional, popularly known as Keadilan) which features
an eye on a blue background as its logo, although the eye is drawn in such a
manner that it can be construed to be two opposing crescent moons.

Anwar was accused of corruption relating to the abuse of power to initiate
the police investigation into the author of the "50 Reasons" book which led to
the author's arrest. He was also separately accused of sodomizing his
government appointed driver, Azizan Abu Bakar. ...During the trial Mahathir
appeared on Malaysian television in a special appearance to clarify the arrest
of his deputy. During this appearance he graphically described sodomy and
mimed certain sexually explicit acts in front of a shocked nation.

Of all the TV shows I have not watched, none do I regret missing more
fervently than those depicting Mahatir Mohammed miming the act of sodomy on
Malaysian television. When

Dick Morris observed that John Kerry's policy vagueness ("I have a plan")
arose from the impossibility of pleasing one wing of his base without offending
the other, he could scarcely have imagined a more appropriate example. A room of
Kerry supporters, some of whom support gay marriage while the remainder are bent
on burying them alive must surely be a strange place to be, a place of limited
conversational possibilities; yet it is precisely the place where the Democratic
Party finds itself. The argument that a Kerry presidency will somehow reform the
Democratic Party by forcing it to assume national security responsibilities is
less apt than the idea that it is stuffing itself with a volatile mix of elements,
all of which will explode on contact the moment the thin membrane which
separates is reactive elements is dissolved. Mahatir's own statement suggests
the alliance is temporary: 'Kerry may not be different from Bush' -- his liberty
is provisional -- but at least he has a plan.