It’s been rumoured that KJ would be contesting this general election and is one of the names put up by the Umno division in Rembau. He has yet to be elected to political office, having been handed his party deputy chieftainship on the family silver platter. A victory at the polls would earn KJ his chops.

Back in September 2005, the prime minister’s son-in-law demonstrated he had already mastered the art of spin after failing in his challenge to Lim Kit Siang to debate in Parliament. He was deservedly taken down a few pegs by the veteran Opposition Leader who said unless KJ has become an MP he shouldn’t demand a debate in the House.

khairy jamaluddin interview 011107 poised But if the polls were to grant KJ a seat, the Honourable Members for Jerai, Jasin and Padang Rengas – should they be returned to Parliament – can expect stiff competition if not be altogether outshone by the 32-year-old debutant.

Yesterday, KJ taunted Anwar Ibrahim saying the former deputy premier could field his daughter Nurul Izzah, wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail or even the man himself in Lembah Pantai and BN would be unfazed. KJ’s listeners roared with approval, it was reported.

Pity then that KJ’s father-in-law called for elections only a clutch of days short on Anwar’s eligibility to contest. The line of unreasoning and baiting adopted by KJ here is classic BN; Boy Wonder was only showing his fitness for the job in the run-up to nomination day.

Rumble in Rembau?

If BN fields KJ in Rembau, a Negri Sembilan constituency which has a 70 percent Malay electorate, PKR’s Badrul Hisham Shaharin has pledged to take him on. Badrul explains: "… someone must try and stop this attempt to form a dynasty in the Malaysian government". The 30-year-old PKR supreme councillor, also known as Che’gu Bard, has a background in teaching and is a political activist and executive co-ordinator of the Gerak movement.

One group in blogosphere are throwing their support behind fellow blogger Che’gu partly out of antipathy to KJ who is in the crosshairs of the backlash against Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Or it can be rightly argued as well that the young upstart wedded to the PM’s only daughter has been a contributing reason for Abdullah’s current unpopularity.

But why is KJ the man so many Malaysians love to hate? For one thing, KJ’s swaggering does not sit well with a people who are generally not only laidback but have ‘adab’ (courtesy). On the flip side, some see him as invigorating new blood. My former mentor, a smart and accomplished Muslim lady, was one.

Several years ago, KJ hosted a TV programme. I remember her saying something to the effect that here was a Malay youth who was articulate, intelligent and well-educated. Such a high achiever could spearhead the change required to lift the Melayu Baru notches up.

It’s entirely possible that she is correct on some of his personal attributes but given Umno Youth’s track record I cannot agree that KJ is good for the Malay community. I don’t know though if she has since modified her favourable opinion of him as a lot of Malaysians have done of his father-in-law Abdullah.

Mainstream media darlings

khairy jamaluddin and pak lah The rakyat that is becoming increasingly disillusioned by Abdullah has for much longer regarded KJ with aversion. The father and son-in-law tag team are beginning to epitomise "heads I win, tails you lose" unfair play ... or rather mission impossible.

KJ had characterised the Bersih rally of Nov 10 as "an illegal gathering by an illegal organisation", adding, "The authorities, particularly the police, must apprehend those who organise this gathering" while Abdullah considered Hindraf an unlawful organisation organising illegal assemblies, and set police on the Indians.

They typify the Umno modus operandi of rigging the game by unilaterally setting the rules, shifting the goalposts, puppeteering the referee and sending off opposing players.

Yet ambitious Junior who reputedly desires to step into father-in-law’s shoes seems to take the public resentment in his stride. Last September, KJ and wife Nori opened a boutique called The Emperor’s New Clothes (TENC) at Pavilion KL, an upmarket mall in Bukit Bintang. Some regard the boutique’s audacious choice of name as KJ sticking up the middle finger at his numerous critics.

TENC had its press launch this month. Mainstream media (MSM) dutifully sent their editors to cover the PR event. "Malay, Indian, and Chinese drums greeted the prime minister and his wife as they walked through the doors lined with 160 ushers dressed in various Malaysian cultural costumes", reported The Star’s Shahanaaz Habib whose newspaper has published her journal of the Iraq war.

It was strange to find a famed journalist styled as "war correspondent" helpfully informing readers that Pavilion is "in the league of New York's 5th Avenue, Tokyo's Ginza or Singapore's Orchard Road". But Ginza or not, Abdullah appears too much to be going about family business and too little looking after national concerns.

Virtually famous

The popular website Malaysia Today once carried a series titled ‘The Khairy Chronicles’ which garnered an avid following. Like him or loathe him, the life and times of KJ are grist for the potboiler mill – ‘Chronicles’ was soon compiled into a book.

Khairy even prefigured Lingamspeak commenting on it: "The central character in the book has the same name as me. The photograph on the cover strikingly resembles me. But the stories inside have nothing to do with me. It is full of lies."

Whether true or not, Malaysia is full or stories about KJ – in the MSM, sugary ones but of course. What about online? Try Yahoo! While the ‘methodology’ is no empirical measure, it’s instructive or at least an amusing way to find out. The search engine has a feature called ‘explore concepts’; you type a key word and Yahoo! will suggest the main concepts associated with it.

As controls tests, I keyed in ‘Mahathir Mohamad’ and ‘Nicol David’ and the results predictably yielded ‘prime minister’ and ‘squash’, and displaying the tons of online articles related to the two personalities vis- B -vis the concepts. It’s not a full-proof research tool but nonetheless fun to play with as a search on Chua Soi Lek revealed ‘video’ and Michelle Yeoh, ‘hot’.

But guess what is the main concept associated with Khairy Jamaluddin? The search results produced a few prominent tags in Malay but the main label was ‘skandal’ with actress Maya Karin. (Both have denied the rumours.)

Inasmuch as KJ would like to think himself cut of a statesman’s cloth, I’m afraid the nature of his current fame – at least in cyberspace – is not all that edifying. There is after all only so much that swindling tailors can do to cloak a naked emperor in shiny spin. People will eventually see that he and his family and in-laws wear no clothes.