{"id":14304,"date":"2014-04-27T20:46:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-27T12:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=14304"},"modified":"2014-04-28T00:33:15","modified_gmt":"2014-04-27T16:33:15","slug":"2734-obama-in-kuala-lumpur-a-disappointing-townhall-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=14304","title":{"rendered":"[2734] Obama in Kuala Lumpur, a disappointing townhall session"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was lucky enough to get invited to a townhall meeting where Obama talked about the US involvement in Asia. The President gave a speech and I thought he\u00a0touched on many issues which are close to Malaysia, from equality, rule of law, how democracy is not just about elections, to security in Asia. The audience loved it when he talked about equality, clapping immediately forcing him to pause. A particularly touching story was about an American teacher from Boston in Malaysia, who after the bombing, encouraged her Malaysian students to write letters to the victims, highlighting the people-to-people relations that exist between the US and Malaysia.<\/p>\n

The audience also clapped almost every time he said\u00a0a Malay word. Yea, cheap thrill. Every time he shouted “Go Blue!” at my university (he gave a speech at Michigan a week or two back), a tiny part of me would vote for the Democrats even though I am a libertarian.<\/p>\n

I thought he set the tone for the townhall session. A good, critical tone. But it was not to be.<\/p>\n

This was the\u00a0chance of a\u00a0lifetime to ask the President of the United States of America important questions at the time when the Trans-Pacific Partnership is under negotiation and the temperature\u00a0in the South and East China Seas is rising, becoming\u00a0the ground for the next Great Game. But it was wasted by ridiculously fluffy questions about his regrets, about his values, about “share with us how Malaysia can become a rich country”, about… what on earth is going on, ask real questions you sheep!<\/p>\n

I was so frustrated that I raised my own hands, hoping that Obama would pick me. I wanted to show these people what a critical question would sound like. I had two questions in mind:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. How confident are you that the TPP would be closed given that you do not appear to have the Congress’\u00a0full support?<\/li>\n
  2. What the US is doing to ensure resolution in the South China Sea will come through peaceful means?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    But with about 300 people, the chances of me being chosen by the US President himself\u00a0was less than half a percentage point.<\/p>\n

    There are other questions one could ask, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to Iran, climate change, North Korea to… oh god, the Pivot to Asia, to MH370, to the US position towards the sharia laws, to… plenty of real issues. This is the leader of the United States, the world’s superpower.\u00a0Not Justin Bieber goddammit.<\/p>\n

    It was quite unbelievable the quality of questions asked.\u00a0These guys cannot possibly have a\u00a0university degree.<\/p>\n

    Obama tried to\u00a0relate his answers to the\u00a0bigger relevant picture, probably trying to make the questions respectable. I do not remember all the details. I think he made a statement about how a country could not\u00a0possibly succeed if the minority in\u00a0the population were discriminated against. Right there, a direct rebuke of Malaysia’s racial policies. There were between-the-lines messages in it. He tried to raise the standards I think. But there is only so much one can do with a terrible question. I meant, terrible questions.<\/p>\n

    So, here is how\u00a0I feel. He gave a respectable speech but the actual townhall session itself was an utter, horrible disappointment.<\/p>\n

    Still, I am glad that I was there.<\/p>\n

    \"Mohd\u00a0\"Mohd\u00a0\"Mohd<\/center>p\/s \u2014 The White House just released the\u00a0transcript from the townhall session<\/a>. Judge the questions\u00a0for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I was lucky enough to get invited to a townhall meeting where Obama talked about the US involvement in Asia. The President gave a speech and I thought he\u00a0touched on many issues which are close to Malaysia, from equality, rule of law, how democracy is not just about elections, to security in Asia. The audience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[409],"class_list":["post-14304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-government","tag-barack-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14304"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14344,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14304\/revisions\/14344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}