Read The Room, Moo!

You know who can tell a joke? Douglas Lim. The actor-turn-comedian has racked up hordes of fans with videos featuring his cheeky, good-natured, sometimes poignant but always on-point takes on the latest issues facing Malaysians.

Meanwhile, our man Fahmi Reza is known for his…err… unique satirical, take-no-prisoner political graphics calling out various leaders’ dumbassery and ineptitude. Not everyone’s a fan, of course, but you can’t deny his work is pretty funny.

Heck, even we, the good folks at BTL, like to crack a line every now and then, even if our jokes may not always stick the landing.

But as some of Fahmi’s art for us — including today’s powerful piece — show, even Mr Kuasasiswa knows there are times to joke and times to, well, not joke.

Read our wicked commentary on Fahmi Reza’s arrest and the royal ‘Dengki Ke’ kerfuffle, here.

Sadly, that’s a lesson no one in the prime minister’s PR team thought to share with El Supremo Muhyiddin Yassin, who, incidentally, cannot tell a joke.

Not being able to land a joke certainly didn’t stop Moo from trying, which he did on Thursday when he snubbed the massive rakyat-driven White Flag and Black Flag movements that have roused the nation.

If you’ve been lucky enough to not have had to know what all this flag business is about, we’ll give you the tl;dr:

#BenderaPutih 🏳 is for folks in desperate need of food and aid to signal for help; while # BenderaHitam 🏴 is for plebs to show frustration at the gomen’s Covid-19 management style – best described as an unfortunate series of fusterclucks (allegedly! allegedly!).

How quickly and how extensively the 2 flags were raised nationwide (in the real world and online) made it clear to everyone whose name isn’t Mahiaddin Md Yassin that Malaysia is going through very real humanitarian and leadership crises.

Why? Cos people are literally dying, going hungry and losing faith as our Covid-19 infection and death rates grow hit the stratosphere – all as our politicians (PM MooMoo included) engage in endless power grabs and politicking.

But on Thursday, our Magnificent Moo not only dismissed the rakyat‘s suffering by saying we don’t need to raise flags white or black, but also thought it would be funny to tell us that “blue flags” (you know, like his PN coalition colour?) were a-ok.

Well, we must’ve diarea-ed our funny bone out recently, because the only response we can muster is ha-not-blardy-effing-funny-ha!

Merry Moo has clearly not learned a single thing from his “rotan” gaffe last year.

But this isn’t a case of papa making a somewhat embarrassing dad joke at a wedding reception. We’re talking about the country’s #1 head honcho, the leader who’s supposed to lead us out of this health and economic disaster. Our self-proclaimed “Abah”.

Well, any father so tone-deaf and blind to the plight of his children should not be allowed to continue raising them.

Is the gomen distributing aid? Well, yes. But… in insisting most folks’ kitchens are full of food and that his peeps will get to others needing help, our premier’s ignoring huge gaps in his gomen’s welfare distribution system.

By dismissing the White Flag initiative, he’s essentially gaslighting a nation that’s spent the past few weeks either seeking help, or helping others, to put food on tables as he and his buddies play Wheel of Fortune with MCOs and Covid SOPs.

In downplaying the #KerajaanGagal sentiment, the PM’s ignoring blatant abuse of power and double standards by his ministers, and a worsening pandemic despite months under an emergency order and lockdowns.

So riddle us this. Since Muhyiddin previously told the country it’s okay to call him stupid, can we just say, on the record, how stupid, insensitive and inappropriate it is to throw an off-coloured joke at a time when the rakyat is at their lowest?