It is also likely that elements of the Thai middle class and the elite have indeed found their hero in a flawed character like Sondhi. That says much about these groups and the nature of Thai society.

Ad hominem arguments are simply not relevant to the issue of whether Sondhi’s current leadership of PAD has any instrinsic value or not.

Sondhi hardly “led the Thai media into disrepute.” Read the conditions under which Thai Rath rose to prominence, supported by the police chief Phao, I believe. The Sondhi story actually sounds a little like the Donald Trump story. The history of Thaksin’s early finances before he struck it rich with an exclusive government concession hardly seem cleaner than Sondhi’s. But ad hominem arguments in the end are really besides the point. Sondhi could be the ultimate prodigal child and still be a hero.

[In general, money and pandering to public taste has been a continual complaint lodged against the media everywhere. It was the fear behind Rupert Murdoch's recent purchase of the Wall Street journal. And for-profit Thai language media can do no better than the norms and constraints of the society that it works in, muzzled by the defamation suits that Thaksin popularized, that's why the coup-appointed government started Thailand's first public broadcastign station (TBS). (three examples, or rather tips of the iceberg : at a university, a law professor, a vice president of the university, a used car salesman, a convenience store owner, and the local bank manager, all arrested for running a child prostitution ring, the story covered once in Matichon with the name of the university, then I believe twice after that without the name of the university, then the story disappeared entirely, and what is truly amazing is that at the university itself there was hardly any mention or discussion of this incident at all among students, there was light gossip among the faculty. Two people who I once knew, one computer programmer from Florida who got shot by a gunman hired by his ex-wife, the other NGO worker who hung himself in his jail cell after extortion attempts by the Thai police, none of these people's names were even spelt correctly in the Thai language newspaper articles documenting their deaths, nor was there any attempt by the media to follow the story and find out what happened and why, even though there was some attempt to do this by the police in the hitman case, there was a nice morgue photo featuring the hitman victim's distended beer belly though. A Nation op-ed piece called for paying more attention to what rural folk consider important yesterday and I would guess that such photos would clearly qualify.) ]

This sounds surprising to me. Sondhi L and the other nationalist tycoons were anti-Democrat at least more vocally 2000. It was the Chuan-led government that finally passed the amendments to the bankruptcy laws in 1998 and 1999 in strong opposition to those senators with business interests (Prachai was one of those senators). The draft has been prepared in 1992 and previous governments had failed in getting it passed, the Chuan-led government didn’t.

The difference between then and now was that the Democrats had lost popular support by 2000 . The nationalist elite knew the Democrats were likely to lose the 2001 election and thus “New Politics” wasn’t necessary and they believed that Thaksin would help their agenda – no doubt helped by some of Thaksin’s “anti-IMF rhetoric”.

You are full of malarkey Jim Taylor but I was shocked to learn that you are a bit of a flasher too!

12 years later, bankruptcy, 2 lese majeste convicted, trespass and treason charge waiting, and a lot less hair.
I would say NO.

Jim Taylor if you can manage to convince the Thai authorities to lock up Sondhi L. for rebellion and insurrection and bankruptcy and insulting your hero Thaksin Shinawatra, I personally eternally be full of gratitude.