Khairy Jamaludin is just like Mahathir

If you've been reading Malaysian blogs that centers on highlighting flaws in the government, you must also have gone through many reads about how bad this Khairy UMNO politician is. The usual argument is that he is racist and immature. I'm not going to try to dispute this for I don't know the man that well.

But many of these blogs somehow take Mahathir as an ally and they usually do this by comparing his administration with the current administration by Abdullah Badawi. Obviously, the comparison is about how Mahathir's time was better. And how Badawi is very weak.

What I find amusing is how these writers can move to support Mahathir when he is exactly like Khairy before being Prime Minister. Mahathir himself used racial politics to climb the ladder. Both Mahathir and Khairy know exactly how important it is to win UMNO's support and they know exactly just what that will win their support.

Mahathir only became more moderate when he assumed power. Before, that, he went further than Khairy and showed no willingness to step back when he published his book "the Malay Dilemma". Even during when he was in office, he changed the name of the national language from Bahasa Malaysia (Malaysian Language) to Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language) obviously to appeal to Malay-ultras.

If your principle says that a politician should not play with the racial cards just to climb the political ladder, then by principle, you cannot look up to Mahathir.