I have had enough of Dr Mahathir Mohamad's pitiful effort to clutch at the last straws of influence and glory. Beh Sai Kong's letter said it all about Mahathir's erratic posturing on human rights and his presumptuous stance that Malaysians consider him worthy of championing sacred goals, especially vis--vis western powers.

It is condemning the Iraqi invasion does not make me forget about his own excesses in stifling dissent and freedom of speech at home; his arbitrary use of draconian laws; and his bitter reprisals against those who dared challenge him.

His purported shock at the way APs were manipulated seems hollow in the light of records showing that the abuse had been going on even when he was the prime minister.

His expression of frustration at the subsidy-mentality of bumiputeras beguiles the fact that it was his policies that nurtured this bad habit; and the lack of ingenuity in offering workable alternatives remains his major failed responsibility.

His subscription to multi-ethnicity and religious tolerance was limited to elementary political expediencies, and yet he lectures others now on these subjects that he had failed miserably.

I cannot make myself be receptive to abject failures pretending to be statesmen. And I feel sorry for the nice man who inherited the rotting throne on a silver platter, for he knows not that he's just meant to be Claudius.

I have a sneaking feeling that what still drives Mahathir on to blabber truisms ad nauseam now is his regret that Malaysia is not the United States where he could have been a bigger tyrant than Bush.

That is the personal tragedy of megalomaniacs. They are never satisfied. Sad.