Shouldn’t Vikram Nair tell us if ST’s Rachael Chang misreported him?

So we now know that Vikram Nair denies that he “considered investing in the elderly, the disabled, the poor and other needy Singaporeans as being akin to a Nigerian scam.” http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=7388

But what did he say in the first place that gave me, for one, the impression that he “considered investing in the elderly, the disabled, the poor and other needy Singaporeans as being akin to a Nigerian scam”?

Didn’t Rachael Chang of ST report as follows, Likening it to a Nigerian scam e-mail where receipients are urged to transfer funds in return for a pay-off later, he said Mr Chen had promised something “even better, because you don’t have to put in any money at all, and you get more than money in return.”? And didn’t Today had this to say?

What could a reasonable man think he meant when the person read the ST’s words? A reasonable man could reasonably conclude that he was implying that “spending money on the vulnerable was like a scam” because [the poor] “don’t have to put in any money at all, and you get more than money in return”.

I certainly tot he was implying it. I further tot what kind of PAP MP is he? It is official government policy to help poor, and the PAP is the governing party. I tot maybe he was the PAP’s equivalent of the WP’s PritamS or GG, an unguided missle.

Well I now know he says he does not mean what I tot he implied because he has said so. (If this sentence makes no sense,  please let me know.Getting brain-dead using words like “reasonable”.)

He should have chosen his words more carefully to prevent reasonable people (like me) thinking that the PAP (and in particular its MPs) does not ‘do” compassion. He should learn from another Cambridge-trained lawyer, one LKY, that words have natural meanings outside the intentions of the user, something that LKY tot Dr Chee and the late JBJ (a so-so lawyer, not trained in Cambridge).

Which reminds me of this

     “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
    Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
    “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
    “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
    “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
    “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master      that’s all.”
    Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

(Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There )

He should also leave jokes to comedians, or get a good script writer. BTW, I know Tin Pei Ling is not moonlighting as his script writer. And neither was she compiling the figures on the FTs that get government scholarships.

A wicked, mean tot. As there is another lawyer Nair (Hri) who has also gotten the PAP some bad publicity by insisting that PM has the unfettered discretion not to call a by-election irrespective of the wishes of the affected voters, maybe the PAP should send these Nairs for some elementary public communications training or make sure they clear their comments with MP Baey, the boss of an int’l PR firm’s local unit?. I mean the PAP doesn’t need another Devan Nair to spoil its “whiter than white”, “smarter than smart” image. One bad “Nair” is enough?