DAP national chairperson Lim Kit Siang was right in saying that National Economic Action Council executive director Mustapha Mohamed's rebuttal to the Economist was "so skimpy that it is totally unpersuasive" to justify its frenzied attack by the government

It is trite of Mustapha to believe that minor errors of fact will contradict or discredit the overall balanced objectivity of Christopher Lockwood's survey on Malaysia.

According to Mustapha, Lockwood's "unkindest cut" was to say that "the greatest service Dr Mahathir could render Malaysia after all these years would be to retire, full stop". Mustapha asked what was the point of telling a man to step down when he himself had already decided to do so o­n his own accord at the pinnacle of his popularity.

Mustapha had surely mistaken the nuance here. Lockwood did not tell Dr Mahathir to step down. He meant that after so many years - and now that Dr Mahathir had decided to step down in October - he would render Malaysia a service by not changing his mind before then.

If Kit Siang were right that Mustapha's rebuttal o­n behalf of the government to the Economist was unpersuasive, the obviously unintended consequence of such unpersuasive rebuttal is to vindicate the persuasive general thrust of the Economist's survey.

To be fair to Mustapha, the rebuttal is weak and half-hearted, as it should be.

It may possibly even be intended to be such, considering that the storm in the teacup against the Economist could be fomented further to serve purposes of Umno's internal jostling rather than genuine outrage of the survey contents ( Political tensions behind Economist berating? Umno insiders speculate ).

A too rigorous and persuasive rebuttal of Lockwood would have the undesirable consequence of negating other good things (albeit qualified) said by him o­n the country and the prime minister.

The fact that the Economist had highlighted and raised the international profile of Malaysia and its leader in a series of articles is a matter about which many people in upper echelons of the government are secretly happy and appreciative.

After all, if the intention was really to convincingly discredit the Economist 's survey, there is no dearth of articulate and persuasive journalists in this country who can help Mustapha in crafting a more aggressive, eloquent and persuasive rebuttal using his points.

And I am not referring to The Star's 'Double Datuk' Wong Chun Wai who disqualified himself at the outset by saying that he never read the Economist .

Besides the intrepid Shamsul Akmar whose journalistic career in the New Straits Times is so far unscathed despite his trenchant criticism of Foreign Affairs Minister Syed Hamid Albar and his ministry for misstating that our Malaysian journalists in Iraq wanted to return, we also have speech writer extraordinaire - Rehman Rashid - who ably articulated Malaysia's position o­n the war o­n Iraq in an interview by the BBC (though subsequently he was given the marching orders for refusing to write a speech for NST group editor-in-chief Abdullah Ahmad as per his service contract).

Also the half-hearted and unpersuasive rebuttal was totally in line with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's response to the Economist controversy o­n his return from leave. Mahathir basically said that he was not bothered to argue with the publication's assertions, when asked by reporters to comment.

In summary, if Mustapha's letter o­n behalf of the government failed to live up to the point-by- point rebuttal that was expected, it must be speculated in his favour that the reply was deliberately intended to achieve a compromise of complex and conflicting objectives to:

Save the face of protesters who were given the opportunity to impugn the survey to prove their loyalty to the paramount leader;

De-escalate and defuse the controversy now that it has served its purpose in tandem with the paramount leader's cue that he was not bothered and did not want to dignify it with response;

Rebut selectively o­nly a few points so as to indirectly affirm without concomitant official acknowledgement of Lockwood's credibility o­n other points - that are favourable o­n the country and its leaders;

Balance against the overkill of domestic criticism that would have deprived Malaysia from having its international profile raised further in the future by an internationally respected magazine like the Economist .

To come out with such a right, measured, ambivalent and half-hearted rebuttal that achieves these competing and subterranean objectives, is a subtle strategy deserving more of praise than criticism.

So Deputy Premier Abdullah Ahmd Badawi has not o­nly come through with flying colours in handling the challenges of Sars scare and Iban bible controversy, but also the brouhaha over the Economist survey as well.

The common thread in all three challenges was that each had initially gotten off o­n the wrong foot but somehow along the way, Abdullah was quick to recognise the mistakes which - rather than exacerbate - he was able to rectify.