Emile Sheng into Hau Administration

For the last two years I've been complaining about the local media quoting Emile Sheng, the pro-Blue academic who works at Soochow University, as if he were some nuetral political analyst. Johnny Neihu, the Taipei Times columnist, who's always a gas, editorializes on Sheng thusly:

And even that pales with another fate: coming down with the debilitating H5NSheng virus. As I said last week, this alarming disease initially took the form of a highly quotable, foreign media-friendly political analyst known as Emile Sheng (盛治仁). Then it mutated into a spokesman for the street campaign to oust the president, before spreading to TV studios, where it unexpectedly emerged -- accompanied by a soundtrack of hackneyed classical music -- as a bloviating sidekick on Sisy Chen's talkshow, Sisy's World News.

Now, Taiwanese scientists' worst fears have been confirmed: The virus is capable of media-to-government transmission. Sheng has been named chairman of the research, development and evaluation commission in the office of incoming Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).

And it may not end there: if the KMT comes to power in 2008 and global health officials fail to take preventive action, this pestilence could even spread to the Presidential Office.

Hope the foreign media gets a clue, and Sheng's name disappears from their rolodexes. And don't underestimate this position: I have no idea how the RDEC in Taipei works, but the Executive Yuan's RDEC is one of the most quietly influential agencies in the government. Sheng will be presiding over what is probably a very important policy-making entity.

[Taiwan] [Hau Lung-bin] [KMT] [media] [Emile Sheng]