Samak finds food and politics don't mix

Former Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej died yesterday. He succumbed to liver cancer in Bangkok’s Bumrungrad Hospital, aged 74.

Samak was PM when I moved to Thailand in April last year. He was quite a character and his presence – along with the movements of his rivals and his interactions with the press – could at times be quite comic, if not downright farcical. Before Thai politics turned sour with mob protests, airports seiges and coups, it could even be quite fun to read about Samak’s exploits.

He was the first of three PMs in my time here (three leaders in 19 months in itself is an indictment of the state of Thai politics) and by far the most memorable. He was nowhere near as photogenic as current PM Abhisit Vejjajiva, nor was he anything like as polite as his successor, Somchai Wongsawat, but that is precisely why he made his mark. He behaved aggressively, he was beligerent to the media, he sulked in public, he was unafraid to belittle people if he felt they deserved it, he was stoic in the face of political pressure – and his hardened appearance matched these, ahem, qualities.

In deeply-divided Thailand, he certainly had his critics and enemies. It was his very presence as PM – and the fact that he was an open supporter of Thaksin Shinawatra and his ideology – that sparked the “yellow shirt” protests of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), who laid seige to the grounds of Government House for weeks while Samak was in charge, and which ultimately – under Somchai’s premiership – led to deaths and the one-week closure of Bangkok’s two airports, causing untold damage to the nation’s economy and reputation.

But I respected Samak’s single-mindedness in the face of such pressure, with not only the PAD but also significant political commentators calling for his head. Not for him the weak attempts to appease all of successor Somchai, whose two and a half months in office were among the more forgettable even in a country known for the transciency of its leaders. Nor for him the squeaky clean, ever-smiling PR profile of Abhisit, who was surely appointed (notice I didn’t say elected) more for his appearance and undoubted charisma than for any heavyweight political credentials.

No, Samak told it the way he saw it, and while that of course didn’t mean he was always right, it did at least show he had the courage of his convictions, and to express himself publicly without first needing a spin doctor to polish his words.

Now, as stated before, I’m not a political analyst. This is not my area of strength, although like most people I have my own political opinions. But the news of Samak’s passing gave me cause to remember some of his more colourful moments.

Cake-eating cat

First of all, before the squabbling erupted into violent demonstrations, there was the usual tit-for-tat name-calling in Government House, with one opposition politician (I forget her name) bringing Samak to task for his choice of cafeteria food. As a man in his seventies, she said it was inappropriate for him to choose a piece of cake for lunch, washed down with a glass of bright red soft drink. She suggested Samak seek psychological help, because Adolf Hitler was known to have similarly immature tastes.

Now, even within the realms of political cat-calling, which often amounts to no more than childish spats along the lines of “You smell!” “Yeah? Well, you smell worse!”, this was adorably convoluted. Never mind education, employment and crime – “Prime Minister, would you care to justify buying that cake? Because I’m rather worried it is a sign you may be a tyrant in the making, capable of ordering the slaughter of millions.”

Samak, as was his wont, barely dignified the comment, choosing instead to fix her with a customary silent staredown.

But Samak’s finest hour would not have looked out of place in an episode of Fawlty Towers, such was the level of high farce.

Pursued on motorbikes by a press pack from Government House to Chatuchak Market, Samak sought refuge in a public toilet. Not wishing to speak to the media, he remained in a cubicle, but unfortunately for him the journalists proved even more stubborn than he. More than an hour later, Samak could no longer stand the heat, moisture, smell and mosquitoes (I have been to the toilets at Chatuchak Market and they’re no place for a dignitary, let me tell you), and emerged, furious and doused with sweat.

He ignored the reporters’ questions (surely the fact he spent an hour inside a toilet cubicle would have told them he was in no mood to speak?), instead bearing down on them with a fuming glare of which Charles Bronson would have been proud. After staring them into silence, he set about berating them and their conduct, and labelling them “disgusting” no less than a dozen times.

Reaction to this incident depended, of course, on which side you were on – either Samak was rightly defending himself against media intrusion, or he showed an arrogant disrespect towards the free press, who were just doing their job in the public interest.

There’s a bit of truth to both sides, but the bigger picture for me at the time was the fun factor of living in a country where the PM is forced to flee halfway across a city as hungry hacks literally chase him into a stinking, mosquito-blown long-drop. Add to that the picture of the nation’s leader stewing there for over an hour, followed by his ultimate outburst, and clearly you can see Samak Sundaravej was not your average politican.

And his eventual dismissal from office in September 2008, after just eight and a half months, was also unorthodox, if not comic for its irony. While the country’s leading industries of tourism, exports and foreign investment were taking near-death blows from the effects of the protracted demonstrations, and while the spectre of corruption hung over everything Thaksin and his allies did, it was none of these concerns which spelled the end for Samak. No, he was booted out because he had twice appeared on a TV cooking show. Innocent enough, except politicians are not allowed to accept money for working with private enterprises. Samak’s fee was nominal and his appearance of no bearing whatsoever to his political standing, but this was a conflict of interest. Not quite along the lines of Thaksin using his position to allow his then-wife Potjaman na Pombejra to purchase multi-million-baht swathes of land, but still, rules are rules…

Ultimately, it may have been a face-saving move. As pathetic a reason it may have seemed for removing a democratically elected PM, Thailand was at the time being virtually held hostage by protesters, with the international news coverage doing the country no favours. There were far bigger concerns than the PM’s appearance on a cookery show, but Samak was steadfast in his refusal to stand down or dissolve the cabinet, the two main demands of the PAD, despite the presence of 30,000 protesters camping out on the lawns of his workplace.

So while the cookery show controversy was of negligible importance, by following the law to the letter, the courts could remove him from office legitimately. And with that removal came a lull – as temporary was it was – in the tensions. The PAD had not been placated, as the Thaksin-backed People Power Party was still in charge, but tempers were nevertheless calmed, and at a critical time.

It also proved timely for Samak himself. Despite being disqualified from the premiership, he had the opportunity to return to power if voted back in, but instead he accepted the judgement and retreated from politics. It seemed strange for such a combative man to slip away from the spotlight so quickly and readily.

But then news came less than a month later that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer, and it all made sense. It’s unknown how long he’d been sick. Indeed, it’s likely he was running the country while ill. Considering how stressful a task that must have been in the late summer of 2008, that shows either remarkable devotion or unwavering stubborness. In Samak’s case, it was probably a bit of both.

He flew to the US for treatment in the new year, returning to Bangkok and continuing to be treated at Bumrungrad, one of the country’s best hospitals. After roughly a year battling the disease, he passed away at 8:48am yesterday morning.

For More Info Vist : preachjacobs, the doctors orders & the den & centro

Need to party this week? We’ll be at East Village Club in Shoreditch for The Shows’ launch party on Thursday!

Special prizes for the best back in the day looks, so we’ll be throwing on our freshest 80s outfits!! Featuring DJs: Spin Doctor, Stuart Patterson, Rob Breezy & special guests… see you at The Show!

We’ll be going down to the Den and Centro on Sunday nights for Back 2 Life! With weekly residents Jazzie B, Spin Doctor and Dom Versell we’ll be dancing til the early hours of the morning…

The launch was Sun 1st November, and now the party will be happening every sunday night from 4pm, and if you’re one of the first 100 in, you’ll receive free membership! See you there!!

Purtroppo gli impegni di studio non mi permettono di seguire con particolare partecipazione il programma pomeridiano di oggi, quindi per questo pomeriggio (o comunque finchè non finisco di studiare) vi proporrò dei video a rotazione musicale. I primi 3 video che ho scelto per voi sono:

Nelly Furtado – Manos al aire (però questo video non è visibile direttamente da RadioBlog 235, ma cliccando sulla finestra vi porterà direttamente su youtube)

Spin Doctor – Two Princess (purtroppo anche per questo video vale lo stesso discorso di quello di Nelly Furtado)

E il terzo video sarà Venus, delle Bananarama! Ci vediamo più tardi, siete in ascolto su RadioBlog 235!

Hier, nous avons reçu à la rédaction de GQ un livre pétillant. Il sort aujourd’hui (1er octobre). Il s’appelle Une Histoire abracadabrantesque (1). Il revient sur toutes les expressions politiques surgies pendant la Vème république. Souvenez-vous par exemple du 14 juillet 2001. Ce jour de fête nationale, le président la République Jacques Chirac est interviewé à la télévision après le traditionnel défilé. On l’interroge sur les sommes dépensées lors de ses voyages privés. Et là, le président se lance dans une tirade qui restera dans les annales mediatico-politiques : « Ce n’est pas que ces sommes se dégonflent, c’est qu’elle font “Pschiiit !” »

La déclaration de Chirac ( aller à 4 mn 06 secondes)

Cette expression « onomatopéique » surprend tout le monde. « Pourquoi pas Atchoum, bof bof, ou miam miam » écrira le journaliste Pierre Georges. D’autant qu’un an avant Chichi a déjà qualifié d’ « abracadabrantesque » l’affaire de la « cassette Méry » (une autre casserole de la Chiraquie), en empruntant un vers à Arthur Rimbaud : « O flots abracadabrantesques ! ».
Cette fois, c’est dans sa propre culture pub des années 60 que Chirac a puisé son inspiration. « Pour toi, mon ange Pschiit orange ! Pour moi garçon, Pschiiit citron ! ». A l’époque, la boisson aromatisée cartonne. Notamment grâce à un slogan trouvé par le publicitaire Jean Davray – « Perrier l’eau qui fait Pschiit » – recyclé pour cette nouvelle boisson par le proprio de la marque.

Ici un spot « abracadabrantesque » avec Chantal Goya en 1985.

En choisissant avec ses spins doctors un slogan qui a traversé les générations, Chirac a fait mouche.
Emmanuel Poncet

(1) « Une Histoire abracadabrantesque, Abécédaire de la Vème Republique » de Marie-France Lavarini, vice presidente de TBWA Corporate et ancienne redac’chef de « Sept sur Sept », et Jean-Yves Lhomeau, ancien directeur adjoint de la rédaction du Monde (Calmann-Lévy)

SPIN: Att regeringen droppar nyheter från budgeten långt innan riksdagen har fått ta del av innehållet kommer att fortsätta oavsett vad oppositionen eller riksdagens talman Per Westerberg tycker.

Vad man förr försökt göra så där lite i hemlighet är nu en etablerad metod inom politisk kommunikation.

Genom läckor kan man lättare sätta sin egen agenda och därmed också styra upp rapporteringen i media. Metoden har också den fördelen för regeringen att oppositionen hamnar på defensiven. 

I Storbritannien blev metoden ren rutin under Tony Blairs tid som premiärminister. Inget har förändrats sedan Gordon Brown tog över i 10 Downing Street.

Att talmannen nu skall kalla partiledarna till samtal kring problemet kommer därför knappast att förändra situationen även om de Rödgröna skulle vinna valet 2010.

I en intervju med E24 sade talmannen följande;

Det här har varit ett sluttande plan de senaste tio åren där mer och mer av budgeten har presenterats innan den har överlämnats. Budgeten har alltid varit tillgänglig för medier och de andra partiernas kanslier kvällen innan för att de ska kunna förbereda sina kommentarer. Men då har det ingått i överenskommelsen att de inte ska läcka. Men det har blivit sämre och sämre med det. (…) [D]et är hela tiden en glidning så att mer och mer kommer ut innan vi kommer till budgetdebatten.

Men enligt talmannen agerar både regeringen och oppositionen på samma sätt: ”När den sittande regeringen lämnade ut budgeten till oppositionen föregående år så fanns den ute efter 15 minuter. Så alla inblandade parter är delaktiga.”

När Anders Borg skulle förklara varför regeringen delade ut hela budgeten redan på söndagen presenterade hela budgeten för media lät han som sin egen spin doctor;

Som ni noterar har vi gjort om ordningen lite för budgetpresentationerna. Alla redaktioner och alla som ska följa den här diskussionen ska ha samma möjlighet att få informationen med samtidighet. Det här är ju information som bör komma ut med samtidighet så att man inte får en situation där det snarast blir ’styckevis och delt’ som detta kommer ut.

Med andra ord ville Borg antyda att anledningen till att han på detta sätt sidsteppade riksdagen (läs: läckte budgeten) var just för att han ville förhindra att budgeten skulle läcka ut!

It used to drive me crazy when my reporter friends called me a “spin doctor”. 

To them I had crossed over to the dark side. I had gone from being a keeper of the flame to selling secrets to the enemy. I was revealing to the world the secret handshake and it was not only disloyal, it was downright dangerous. How could reporters do their jobs if everyone knew their tricks?

Reporting is a tough job with incredible pressure but many stories fall into a pattern and are pre-written before the interview even takes place. Reporters decide what they want you to say before they arrive for the interview.

If you haven’t thought about your message or if you think you’ll just answer the questions then you are more likely to be drawn into the pre-determined story. People who have been media trained have a clear idea of what their message is and a very clear idea of what they want to say about the topic.

The reporter’s agenda is to get a good story. The agenda of anyone being interviewed should be to get a message out in an accurate, concise and honest way. In the best of worlds, those agendas mesh and everyone, including the audience, wins.

A reporter has to work harder to interview someone who has been media trained. Cheap tricks don’t intimidate them and a superficial knowledge of the subject won’t trick them. The reporter has to do his or her homework, keep an open mind and not jump to conclusions. Media training makes better reporters.

The job of anyone being interviewed  is to provide as much clarity as possible and that can only be done by strategically planning out what you want to say before the interview begins and then practising how you’re going to say it.

Many reporters actually like to interview people who have been media trained because it increases the likelihood that they will have a well-defined, articulate and succinct point of view. Of course, if a reporter specializes in sensational stories that make people appear guilty or evasive, media training is seen as more of a hindrance than a help.

Over the years I’ve become more thick-skinned about comments from my reporter friends. Maybe it’s because I’ve media trained more than a thousand people and less than a handful of them ever looked forward to a media interview. Their biggest fear is usually that the media will get it wrong.

Spin doctor? I suppose so, but the spin that has worked best for my clients is one that might surprise some reporters. It’s the basis of any message and the quickest way out of trouble – tell the truth.

The trick is to tell it well.

Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas and Republican presidential candidate, complained to Politico Tuesday that journalism is dead in America.  Huckabee’s outrage came several weeks after much of the national media scolded him for remarks made on his radio show regarding the potential fate of Sen. Ted Kennedy under the proposed Obama healthcare plan.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee

In his interview, Huckabee claimed that journalists today rely on “spin-doctor spoon feeding,” and that they rarely go directly to the source for quotes.  He even went as far as to accuse Newsweek of fabricating quotes.

Poor Huck. Right? Not really.

The truth of the matter is that Newsweek’s quotes contain the exact wording from the Aug. 27 edition of “The Huckabee Report”.  Don’t believe it?  \”The Huckabee Report\” from Aug. 27

Huckabee has also complained that his statements about Kennedy and health care were taken out of context by the media.  He defended his comments on his weekly television show, “Huckabee”, which airs on Fox News.  During the program, Huckabee used footage from a June 23 ABC town hall meeting with President Obama.  In the footage Obama tells Jane Sturm, the daughter and primary caregiver to her 105-year-old mother, that in some cases the best option for our nation’s elderly may be to set aside surgeries with little chance of success.  Huckabee associated the President’s remarks with the death panel accusations that Republicans have made throughout the ongoing healthcare debate.

What Huckabee does not take into consideration, is that he too is part of the media, and that he too takes quotes out of context.  Huckabee’s show left out vital portions of Obama’s conversation that put the Sturm comment in context.  Obama did not coldheartedly tell Sturm to let her elderly mother die.  Obama said, “ultimately [end of life decisions] are going to be between physicians and patients.”

Nearing end of life surgeries are simply health care costs that President Obama wants patients and doctors to consider.  Obama never told Sturm’s mother to “give up on life, and go home to take pain pills, and die,” the way that Huckabee had described “Obamacare” in his radio show regarding Sen. Kennedy.  Obama simply told Sturm that Americans need to weigh the cost-benefits of some operations.

Face it Huck, you’re part of the same media problem that you denounce.  Keep spinning ‘em Huck!

Feds promise mandatory jail time for major fraud. Judges could consider restitution for victims as part of white-collar crime bill

I’ve always found it funny that someone could steal a $2000 car and be sentenced to 20 years in jail. But steal 30 Million and you only do 18 months…. at Club Med. Excellent. There’s plenty of crime on Parliament Hill. Start your crackdown there. Are the politicians going to turn on their masters in Corporate Canada? How long will it take Harper to IGNORE this Law?.. Start with Mulroney. That would be a fine example to lead the charge with. There’s not a word in the legislation about obscene bonuses. Those will remain legal. Lock up all the CEOs! (Start with Bell…) Start with the telecommunication providers, and the banks. That’s great,  as long as the crackdown starts on parliament hill. Rob a thousand people of $100,000 each, that’s a crime. Rob a million people of $100 each by credit card interest rates that’s OK, that’s business. We should have election threats every months, it seems it’s the only way anything happens on the hill. Threaten an election and suddenly the legislative agenda is crammed with draft laws that should have been there months ago.  Harper – just another Calgarian running another Ponzi scheme… promising big returns but producing nothing of value. http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/09/15/white-collar-crime015.html

   The government “moving ahead, with more taxes” is not  the most important thing that the province can do to strengthen the economy and create jobs but rather to seriously plug up the leaking  holes in the taxpayer’s pail of money first.

The other day in leafy Georgetown, a French historian – and, alas!, soon to be economist – made a remarkable observation. Unaware that I recently abandoned my obsession with difference for an obsession with similarity, he claimed that Washington DC in 2009 must resemble fin de siècle Vienna. I pounced.

His argument – my recollection of which is smudged by several bottles of wine that followed his exposé – is that contemporary DC and imperial Vienna share far-reaching delusions of grandeur. Größenwahn, in Kaiserlingo.

The parallel is compelling. Vienna’s fin de siècle Hofräte, K&K confectioners and psychoanalysts are DC’s hill staffers, spin doctors and fitness gurus. (For a great film on DC fitness gurus, watch Burn After Reading. For more on spin doctoring watch the same film or watch out for my blog on Campaign Management classes, coming soon).

Vienna had 8-horse coaches; DC has 500-horsepower SUVs. The Pestsäule am Graben is an ornate and less phallic Washington Memorial. Here and there, neoclassical columns are ubiquitous, as are large avenues named after important states, such as Pennsylvania Avenue or Kärtner Straße. In both imperial hubs, regal government officials pranced about deploying troops to discipline unruly minorities or borders. The Naturhistorische Museum had Steller’s sea cow , the Aerospace museum has spaceships and unmanned battle drones. That is just the surface!

The extinct Sea Cow (Hydrodamalis gigas)

MQ-9 Reaper, a hunter-killer surveillance UAV used by US and UK in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Größenwahn, of course, goes much deeper. It lives in the heads of policymakers who can pull the plug on millions, and in the heads of their eager disciples, who hope to do the same one day. It lives in the curt frowns of waiters who are used to serving Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac 1986, not the cheapest bottled Bud please. Quite frankly, it resides in the mere possibility of wielding absolute power.

Of course, delusions of grandeur are still delusions, and so my brief postulation begs the question whether Americans will fall from grace, just like the Austrians did? This is where I disagree with my French friend. I don’t think so – and in fact I don’t think the analogy carries very far at all – if only because I am better at spotting difference than its reverse.

The Doctor’s Orders 33
9pm-3am Friday 4th September 2009
@ Herbal 10-14 Kingsland Rd, London E1

With
John Robinson (live)
Lowkey (live)
The Funhouse Live with DJ Mk & Harry Love
& your host Spin Doctor

£7 in advance or £10 on the door
Advance tickets available from ticketweb.co.uk 0844-477-1000

Always bringing the hottest Hip-Hop to the capital means not only using established, much loved artists but also shining a light on those breaking through and doing something new and exciting. Tonight we are doing that with abundance!

Aaero Eckhart interpretou um spin doctor em Obrigado por fumar. Foto: Shelby White.

Spin doctor. Ao pé da letra, a expressão pode ser traduzida como doutor da mudança de sentido. No contexto  em que estamos analisando, doutor do engano ou, mais objetivamente, manipulador de opinião. No campo das relações públicas, spin é um termo que significa fornecer a interpretação de um evento ou campanha de modo a persuadir a opinião pública em favor ou contra uma certa organização ou figura pública. Se, por um lado, os profissionais tradicionais de relações públicas ou assessoria de imprensa são criticados quando apresentam fatos com uma certa criatividade, no spin vai-se muito além e normalmente o seu emprego implica em fazer uso de táticas que envolvem argumentos falsos, enganosos, falaciosos e/ou manipulativos.