The sale of MV Augusta by the new Proton management represents slowly but surely the brick by brick dismantling of Dr Mahathir Mohamad's castles in the air. Hence, the almost frantic but juvenile tone of his recent statement in so-called defence of his 'credibility and honesty'.

Mahathir and former Proton chief Tengku Mahaleel had asked Proton to answer to the Malaysian public as to why MV Augusta, bought by the previous management (read Mahathir and Mahaleel) for RM315 million, was sold less than a year later for one euro.

The other side of the coin would be to ask why did Proton (read Mahathir and Mahaleel) pay RM315 million for a loss-making company whose net worth presently is only one euro, before Proton had really touched it?

Both questions are no less valid. To the seasoned business-minded Malaysian, valid answers can only be ascertained by comparing the professional opinions sought before the purchase (if at all) and before the sale. And then figure out intervening events of an impacting nature. Even after all that, beauty would still be in the eye of the beholder.

For the seasoned political observer who knows how all this will end, Mahathir's letter is a big yawn. There is no way that Pak Lah is going to publicly explain the true rationale for the sale, at the risk of invalidating his anointer.

For the ordinary layman like me, do we really want to know the answers? Yes, please. Are we holding our breath? No, because as we had seen, not even a royal commission to investigate whatsoever and whosoever in this country, can come close to finding out the truth, what more doing something about it.

It all boils down to who we would rather believe - an ex-racing driver in servitude to an ex-premier, or a bunch of nervous technocrats trying to make blurry sense to an already blurred chief. Not much of a choice, really.

So would we be blamed for just relying on good old common sense? Like that you don't need Augusta or Lotus technology to figure out how to make car windows work. Leading-edge expertise can still be bought, but it helps if you have mastered the basics of your business.

Or as Prof Ungku Aziz once commented about Tabung Haji's intention of acquiring Malaysia Airlines, 'You don't need to own a dusun durian (durian orchard) to be able to enjoy durians'.

The soap opera will continue for as long as our government keeps having to feed this albatross hanging around our neck in the name of national interest, or humour its champion already grappling with a tainted legacy. Surely we should not be encumbered by one man's gratitude for being anointed.

Stay tuned for excerpts from the next episode: The sale of Lotus.