In his letter , Bryan Tan says the controversial booklet on water dispute between Malaysia and Singapore was published three months ago, suggesting implicitly that it is not intended by the Singaporean authorities to embarrass Pak Lah, or create an opportunity for him to show his nationalist credential to Umno and the media.

Bryan Tan may be right, but in the politics of Umno and the media the party controls, every issue - whether domestic or foreign - could be exploited in hundreds of ways to dupe or mislead the credulous and malleable party members and supporters. Above all, there are many Malaysians who still believe without question whatever the official media suggests, explicitly or implicitly.

For example, Inspector-General of Police Norian Mai once publicly alleged that the recently released ISA 6 was prepared to launched an armed struggled, and then used the unsubstantiated allegations - which was widely reported in the media - to detain the opposition leaders under ISA for two years without specific charges.

In the late 1960s, the late Umno president and prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman was alleged by his detractors and critics in poison-pen letter to be involved in all sorts of 'immoral' activities, and he was overthrown.

In 1998, the then deputy president of Umno and deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim suffered the same fate of former premier Tunku Abdul Rahman. The ring leader of the detractors and critics of both Tunku and Anwar is probably the same man.

That man is certainly a very intelligent. He knows how to manipulate and exploit mass psychology of a community with low self-esteem - the collective search for glory and recognition; the fear of the race being swamped or erased from the earth, and popular demand for an outspoken leader, hero, or champion of the underdogs.

So, what is perfectly rational, right and legal from the perspective of Singapore and the international community could be twisted, spinned, coloured or outright distorted in poison-pen letters and propaganda to serve irrational and wrong purposes. This is the essence of Umno politics for years.