August 17, 2024: You have to lead a superpower nation to be able to be rudely playful with a reporter and get away with it.
This is not to downplay what Palang Pracharath leader Prawit Wongsuwan did the other day. (According to some LINE comments, he might have put an end to any prime ministerial aspiration with that little “patting”.)
This is to say that a politician’s aggressiveness toward members of the press is perceived differently from place to place. What is considered rude also seems to increase in seriousness in reverse proportion to the sophistication of politics.
For example, in one of President Joe Biden’s hot mic moments, he was overheard murmuring while being inquired about inflation: “What a stupid son of a @#$%&”
Imagine Prawit was overheard saying something like that when a reporter asked him about the House of Representatives vote to elect Paetongtarn Shinawatra as the new prime minister.
Peter Doocy is a senior White House correspondent, mind you. What happened in the studio of Fox News? They laughed at it. They found it hilarious. Most pro- and anti-Biden news networks gave it a rest after two days.
Again, this is not in Prawit’s defence. This is to bring back a record that the leader of the free world could call a member of a major element of democracy “stupid” and all everyone did was laugh.
by Tulsathit Taptim
