Just like the manner MIC secretary-general S Sothinathan was suspended from the Parliament for breaking ranks with the Barisan Nasional regarding CSMU issue, Pak Lah should use the same yardstick to mete out similar if not the same punishment against International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz for defying the cabinet's gag order on the AP fiasco.

If Pak Lah and Umno keep quiet and do nothing about Rafidah's outright disrespect for the cabinet's gag order, than it is crystal clear there is double standard in the meting out punishment between a bumiputera cabinet members and a non-bumiputera one.

Likewise, I sincerely hope Lim Kit Siang will put to rest questions and insinuations arising from APs for members of parliament. When questions were put forward to him pertaining to what he did with his APs, Lim merely responded by saying: 'I never used an AP to import a car and I reserve the right to take legal action'.

This statement is not enough especially to those who voted him to the Parliament. If Lim has neither used his APs nor sold them, where are the APs now and in whose hands are they in?

Lim's silence on this issue has tacitly made his supporters, well-wishers and DAP voters the actual 'political jokers'. Needless to say, other opposition party MPs should also come forward and tell the rakyat what they did with the APs given to them.

Silence is not golden in this situation.

Alexander Pope, in his Temple of Fame said:

'The flying rumours gatherer'd as they roll'd

Scare any tale was sooner heard than told;

and all who told it added something new

and all who heard it made enlargements too.'