"The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter, the rain may enter – but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement."
– Pitt the elder
"Look around. Turn the dump upside down if you want to. I won’t squawk – IF you’ve got a search warrant."
– Sam Spade, from The Maltese Falcon
KMT lawbreakers gain illegal access to the campaign headquarters of Frank Hsieh, the Taiwanese independence party’s presidential candidate. In broad daylight. From the Taiwan News‘ Thursday editorial:
At approximately 4:30 p.m., KMT lawmakers Fei Hung-tai, Chen Chieh, Lo Ming-tsai and Lo Shu-lei of the Legislature’s financial affairs committee, literally dragged Finance Minister Ho Chih-chih and the president of the First Financial Holding Company to the DPP candidate’s "Taiwan Renewal" campaign headquarters and, heedless of the protests of security guards, rushed into the building and attempted to enter the personal office of the DPP [presidential] candidate.
The legislators apparently tried to bluster their way past the guards by alternately claiming they were "inspecting a public place"* or were carrying out a "fire safety inspection." Inspecting a public place? That’d be lie #1. Once somebody rents a property, it’s no longer public by any stretch of the imagination. Period. As for the whole fire safety inspection line, I took the liberty of googling "fire safety inspection certification" on the web. In Florida at least, certification entails 200 hours of training plus the passing of a written exam. Yes, Florida is Florida, and Taiwan is Taiwan, so the requirements may be somewhat different. Still, I’d be most surprised to learn that these illustrious legislators had the certification to conduct fire safety inspections, to say nothing of local fire department authorization to conduct an inspection on that particular day, in that particular locale.
The China Post provides a vivid image of what happened next:
When the group took an elevator to the 13th floor…the DPP staff cut off the power supply, trapping them inside.
(Threepio! Shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level! Shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level!)
The Taiwan News adds that the novice fire inspectors were stuck in the elevator for almost 40 minutes, and its account continues:
All four were eventually escorted out of the building by police called by Hsieh office staff and, surrounded by Hsieh supporters, the three were pushed into a police car, while Lo, the son of noted gangster and former legislator Lo Fu-chu, fled the scene.
The incident sparked a two-and-a-half hour confrontation as Hsieh’s staff, volunteers and supporters blocked police from allowing the police cars from leaving with "suspects caught in the act of committing a crime" until a Taipei District Court prosecutor arrived to take a disposition and accept charges from the Hsieh camp.
In their statement to police, the group justified their actions by claiming to be investigating allegations that the First Commercial Bank had rented office space to Hsieh’s campaign at below-market rates. Of course, had the merry band’s "investigation" succeeded, they would have been privy to confidential campaign information belonging to their political opponent, so some might be tempted to take their alibi with a grain of salt. At any rate, the Taiwan News correctly points out that allegations of this nature merit a letter of complaint to the appropriate prosecutor’s office, not vigilante action:
The KMT lawmakers said their action was based on "information" that the Hsieh headquarters was "illegally" using a floor of the 13-floor building, but we believe that there can be no justification whatsoever for the KMT legislators to take the law into their own hands and attempt literally to break into the headquarters office of a presidential candidate of a rival party.
In the history of elections in Taiwan, yesterday’s incident marked the first time that staff from one party had attempted to openly enter without permission the offices of another presidential candidate.
I know it’s a cliche, but I still can’t resist saying it: What did KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou know, and when did he know it?
* Inexplicably, a link to the China Post‘s article on the subject, titled, "First melee erupts in run-up to polls," is nowhere to be found on its website. Now c’mon, that was a front page, above-the-fold story!
UPDATE: I’m being a bit mean asking the old Watergate question of Ma, because after all, he DID apologize, in a manner of speaking. It was one of those everybody’s-in-the-wrong-so-no-one’s-really-to-blame deals:
Speaking in Chiayi yesterday, Ma expressed "regret" over the incident and censored the Hsieh camp [!] for "violence".
That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it? If Ma Ying-jeou wins, I mean. Four years of Milk-Toast Ma doing nothing but apologizing, over and over again, for the extremism of power-drunk KMT parliamentarians.
UPDATE #2: Many thanks to Tim Maddog for finding the link to the China Post story. The link’s been added to the post.
