Hishamuddin Off-loading Khairy Jamaluddin

Malaysiakini reported the following news (only relevant extract), but note my underlining:

Umno Youth head Hishammuddin Tun Hussein today said it was up to his deputy Khairy Jamaluddin to convince Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders that he did not intend to offend them.

Commenting on Khairy’s defence that his controversial remarks at a recent Umno meet had been misinterpreted, Hishammuddin said: “If he said he has been misunderstood, then I believe he has been misunderstood.”

As to whether he would instruct his deputy to apologise, he said: “I don’t instruct anybody to do anything especially when it involves his personal views.”

“It’s for him (Khairy) to satisfy our friends in the component parties that what was reported is not what it seems. There are people who have looked at it from a racial point, we have to convince them [...] It’s a learning process for Khairy,” he said at a joint press conference of BN Youth wings at the Parliament lobby.

[…]

“I don’t think it’s an issue, I think it’s something that can be resolved [...] the main thing is to satisfy those who have been offended,” he said, adding that he has yet to read Khairy remarks.

The Umno Youth chief, however, added that he will not stop anyone from raising the issue during the next BN Youth meeting.

At the press conference, Liow and Mah praised Hishammuddin for his immediate reaction to the controversy.

Met by reporters later, Liow declined to comment on whether MCA Youth accepted Khairy’s explanation but said Khairy had communicated with him “on the instruction of Hishammuddin”.

In an unrelated development, Hishammuddin said the call to rotate the Penang chief minister post was no longer an issue as he has instructed the youth wings in the state to forward their views to chief minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon.

Looks like even UMNO Youth Chief, Hishamuddin Tun Hussein, must be so embarrassed by the racist slant of Khairy’s remarks about the Chinese community exploiting UMNO’s ‘weakness’ that he has distanced himself from the ‘whiter than white’ Prince Consort.

The MCA has also added another turn of the screw for Khairy by ‘praising’ Hishamuddin for ‘instructing’ Khairy to ‘communicate’ with MCA Youth, and refusing to comment on whether the MCA Youth had accepted Khairy’s explanation.

The fact is that Khairy had exceeded the bounds of political propriety by instigating racist sentiments of fear against a group of Malaysians, represented by another member of the BN. He had already deeply embarrassed his father-in-law, who was compelled to have a special TV interview to refute what most Malaysians had been talking about for years, and now Khairy continued to add on to AAB's burden, by embarrassing his party.