Doing something for one day makes you an expert

I love this part of Ma's long stay. Yesterday he went down to farm in Changhua County. Sanlih had footage of a farmer telling him he'd kill the rice with his planting technique.

Ma went out into the field, sweat a little bit, got yelled at for planting poorly, came out to recite a Tang dyanasty poem about how hard being a farmer is (had he memorized that a long time ago or just for this occasion?) and announced his plan to help the farmers, a "third stage of land reform" (a phrase chosen thanks to the success of earlier land reforms) that includes massive spending.

The best part is you use your day of being a farmer to make your major policy announcement as if going out there for a few hours meant you had new authority to make your suggestions on how to handle the related problems.

As my father-in-law in Pingtung says, Ma is just better off doing what he normally does every day. Because this "long 18-day stay that involves going back to Taipei several times and doing manual labor for a few hours on three of those days" is simply not convincing anyone Ma's closer to the people or understands the Center/South of the country.

Again, he and most politicians ought to be learning what life is like for most people and for the less economically fortunate. But you look out of touch when you come out to recite a Tang Dynasty poem. And worse yet, the poem is just about how hard farming is?. Nothing about the satisfaction, the connection with the land? Well, this is why Ma's in trouble . ;)