He was referring to the response from Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan yesterday over the DAP parliamentary leader describing them as two Umno stooges from Sabah.
“Salleh asked if standing up for one’s party to defend it against lies, slander and other attacks makes one a stooge. The answer is ‘No’, I had never said or implied such a thing.
“I was referring in the context that they were like the ‘The Three Stooges’, being Prime Minister Najib Razak’s court jesters, the laughing stock of the country,” Lim said in a statement.
The Gelang Patah MP added that Salleh’s response made him realise both ministers also qualified for the other meaning of “stooges”.
“Salleh and Rahman fit the bill of being an unthinking underling who will do anything to please his master,” Lim said, adding that there were many examples of such behaviour from the two Umno leaders.
Yesterday, Lim had ridiculed Rahman, saying he had “scored an own goal” with his statement, entitled “Time for Lim Kit Siang to resign from politics”.
“He argued that I should resign from politics because DAP cannot take on BN and Najib alone despite being the biggest opposition party, and that is why I was using Dr Mahathir Mohamad to spearhead Pakatan Harapan, despite him not being an MP.
“He also suggested that I had become a liability to the opposition as I was propelling Mahathir as the saviour of Malaysia after attacking Mahathir for 22 years as prime minister,” Lim had said, pointing to the errors in the way Rahman had rationalised his arguments.
Today, Lim thanked Rahman for the implications of his response that the DAP veteran had “become jaded” after so many years in politics.
“Does he realise that he is conceding that I once had good ideas about politics for the country.
“Would Rahman list out my ‘good ideas’ before I became ‘jaded’ in my thinking, as it is a great pity these ‘good ideas’ had not been accepted and implemented by the Najib premiership.”
Yesterday, Lim had also asked Salleh why he was so upset that former Umno president Mahathir had admitted he had been wrong when he previously said that DAP was anti-Malay.
“Salleh has still not been able to give me an answer,” Lim said.
“Let Salleh and Rahman continue in both contexts as stooges, that is court jesters and unthinking underlings, for the more they blog, the less credibility Umno/BN will command among Malaysians and the end of Umno’s political hegemony will come sooner.”