Defence Minister Hishamuddin further damaged his chances of a “sweetheart” succession to the Prime Ministership, for which he is being UMNO tipped, by his public statement on the Intelligence General’s pay off from Najib. A pay off that has, significantly, attracted no comment or explanation either from the criminal giver or from the military recipient.

Speaking at a military base the fumbler Hishamuddin did not trouble himself to deny that his subordinate had received the payment nor that there had been and would not be any official investigation. The ministerial stance would appear to be that if anything untoward, such as bribe taking, occurs in connection with anyone for whom the Defence Ministry is responsible, it is up to someone else, unspecified, to investigate.

What, one is forced to wonder, does he think his job as Defence Minister entails? Taking the salute and anything else on offer? How fortunate that, unlike in the past, Malaysia is under no threat of armed attack. If it were one shudders to think how this joke Minister would react. Up to someone ese one assumes.

Could Hishamuddin, perhaps, take time to issue a list of what he thinks his duties and responsibilities are? And if he can do that he can also say why and how black bag payments to personnel directly under his command are “not his business”

If there are any military intelligence units, and the need for or use of them appears on the evidence to be doubtful, then how can they not be the business of the Minister of Defence; however ignorant he shows himself to be