“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

- HL Mencken

COMMENT | Nobody should be surprised that the state security apparatus

is investigating DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang for his Sri Lanka comments.

As reported in the press, Lim said “I had no objection to changing the heading as my intention was not to incite any unrest but to warn of the dangers of allowing the political and socio-economic conditions to deteriorate, like what happened in Sri Lanka for over half a century”, after his political secretary advised him to change the heading.

Why did his political secretary ask him to change the headline? The answer is obvious. The political secretary knew that the cretins would be crawling out of the woodworks to vilify Lim.

The big question is why didn’t Lim understand this?

For decades Lim was used as the convenient bogeyman of Malay political insecurities. He had to fend off lies that he was somehow involved in the May 13th riots.

Lim also had to fend off lies that he was an agent of...