In support of Kim Quek's letter o­n ' The Mahathir Legacy ' , I fully concur with his points and would like to point out that the real danger to Malaysia is the poor quality of leaders that cannot even properly rebut what most people generally consider an average report without much depth.

If the articles were so wrong and so defamatory, then it should not take much intelligence and skills to rebut them. Instead everyone is preoccupied with name-calling and accusations. It reflects a culture and leadership of dishonesty with facts and truths, and poor critical thinking. The bottom line is that our political leaders no longer has faith in the truth and o­nly ultimately believes in raw power - a legacy of Mahathir's so-called "pragmatism".

Our concern over the Economist article is not so much that it is critical of Mahathir, but rather how poorly it fails to identify the real issues in Malaysia as outlined by Kim Quek. We should be doubly concern about our politician ineptness in replying to the Economist and the poor public

debate. The lack of intellectual strengths at the top post-Mahathir Malaysia is what going to harm this country more than a few words from a average publication like the Economist .

We are now spending our ways out of trouble as never before. Our leaders, whether Umno or the opposition, are incapable of grasping the waves of change dominating the world. Our mediocrity is going to ultimately destroy us.