COMMENT Hyperbolic and exaggerated statements are par for the course at this stage in the campaign for the general election.

The seasoned are apt to factor in the necessary discounts for the fact that this is the madding season and so inflated statements are to be expected and vetting them for their truth-content is difficult.

But shake them down to their truth-core is a must. Otherwise what they purport to say about reality cannot be grasped.

MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek's assertion that an Anwar Ibrahim administration would resemble that of Malaysia's fifth prime minister, the hapless Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on the grounds that both leaders' intoxication with religious talk invites disaster on the economic front is an opinion that must be parsed for its truth-content.