I had the dubious fortune of watching 'The Khairy-Chua Show' on TV3 and as expected it was all rhetoric and entirely duplicitous. In short, the only winners from the so-called debate were the debaters themselves.

On the show, the fact that since 1988 only a little above 18 percent of corporate Malaysia is in the hands of bumiputeras was exhaustively mulled, pondered and hyperbolically discussed which would have been amusing if all viewers and affected constituents were dictionary authors.

The MCA man was discreetly for investigation and policy scrutiny, while the Oxbridge product promoted the re-imposition of the more explicit, ethnic-based aims and targets as per the NEP. In short, one asked to review and revisit, the other requested the review of a policy which has been proven to be only able to bring us up to the stated percentage anyway.

So no matter how precarious the discussion was, no one dared broach the fact that a policy is only as good as its enforcers and that the selection of an elite group of cronies to champion the cause of bumiputera via politically-backed, financially unsound, debt-laden vehicles was wrong.

The phrase 'flogging a dead horse to make it run' comes to mind.