LOS ANGELES -- Perhaps the last thing that the well-run city-state of Singapore needs is for some outside columnist to defend it. Among the many natural-born rhetorical defenses available on this amazing island is the redoubtable Lee Kuan Yew. Even at 82, the founding prime minister of modern Singapore is not someone you mess with.
Then there is Kishore Mahbubani, the country's former U.N. ambassador who's now dean of the public policy school at the National University of Singapore. Colleagues at the U.N. used to routinely describe him as "the best and the brightest." George Yeo, foreign minister, educated at Harvard and Cambridge, is no slouch, either. (His many admirers claim that the only chink in his armor is his golf game.)
And the list of formidable Lion City naysayer-tamers goes on and on. So, if this columnist were smart, he'd let Singapore deal with the ungracious and unnecessary remarks about the country's political system recently offered by outgoing U.S. ambassador Frank Lavin.