The effort to give the right usage to the sweet basil, as the Romanians say, is obvious: it's the effort to turn the biggest admonition ever given to a candidate country into the biggest victory of PSD (Social Democrat), which has broken all records of political nonsense. For one week, we've been communicated all kind of trivial things about the European Parliament and its lack of importance (beware, parliamentarians, the scornful attitude of the governing party towards the representatives of the citizens encompasses, I am afraid, more than the Euro-parliamentarians). We have found out that they haven't excluded us. We've been told that the recommendation is "constructive" (V. Puscas); that "everything went well" (M. Geoana); that "there is no tragedy" (V. Hrebenciuc); that the press is hold responsible (I. Iliescu); that we don't have to interfere with the "soup of the hysterical" (the same I. Iliescu, a few days later) , and generally, Nastase government is the only able to take us out of the discredited pit where it threw us itself. As if one could get out of a fountain by sitting in the bucket and pulling strongly the handle upwards. The climax of this media war was reached last week-end when some stupid brain pushed the Government's spokeswoman in the front line of a new parting battle. The distinguished lady should give back to the budget the salary earned - for the job she did � speaking on our money, in the name of a party we haven't enrolled in yet, not all of us. This time, the Government-Party made her proclaim that PNL (National Liberal) and PD(Democrat) are nothing else but the "axis of evil". The enormity of this plagiarism betrays the despair and stupidity of Nastase Government. The analogy between PNL-PD and the rogue states automatically implies the equivalence between the resolution of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and the disaster on the 11th of September 2001. Therefore, any person with some brain would wonder how could one and the same event be at the same time and under the same perspective, a catastrophe and a victory? It is clear that Mr. Nastase, wearing or not a Texan hat, considers himself to be equal to the US president. Like the US president, he makes unexpected trips to the troops deployed in Iraq to encourage the troops back home. However, why should we compare the poor Opposition, - which is making some fuss indeed, but after having made efforts, and that beats everything!, to send its messengers in tandem with Mr. Hrebenciuc to Brussels � with the dictatorship. It looks rather exaggerated to me, to say just this. How can anybody compare the good, boring Mr. Stolojan with a Korean president, who for generations have put to starvation a fanatic people? How can anybody compare the distinguished Mr. Melescanu, an urbane and politically flexible person, with an Iranian ayatollah? Between the radicalism of these fundamentalists, be they Communist or Muslim, and the infinite availability to negotiation and compromise of our Liberals there can be no comparison. As far as the parallel between the explosive Mr. Basescu and, for instance, Saddam Hussein is concerned, that's out of question. Saddam was the one who controlled all the secret services, not the other way round. Let's be serious. If PNL-PD are the "axis of evil", what can we say about the "Greater Romania" which makes subversive and anti-Constitutional appeals to recruit SRI members, while these are not allowed, under the law, to engage politically? Not only that PRM is allowed to do what it wants, but it is also encouraged, through the public television, to a new form of collaborationism. At the happy time of the Red Quadrilateral, the tandem Romanian Television - Corneliu Vadim Tudor were militating against Hungary. We can bet that, in the near future, Vadim the Hungarian-eater, the gypsy-eater, and Jewish-Masonic conspirator will turn into Vadim the Bulgarian-eater. Apart from this great hyperbolization, which spared PNTCD (Christian Democrat Party) for the first time after December 1989, - the friends know why � the PSD big bosses seem able to produce, in order to repair the European damage, only recycled waste resulted from the 2000 campaign. The journalists' attempt to make them understand that their trying to hold responsible the former government for plagues that only one government �namely Nastase government - could have caused � feudalization of the justice, top level corruption, oppression of the press - is lamentable. The public opinion refuses in vain to be fooled with stupid accusing Constantinescu administration with something that was actually a success: it was the only administration that treated seriously the economic and administrative reform, that proved by facts that the EU accession was the top political priority, both for the administration and for Romania, - and consequently, it started in 1999 the EU accession negotiations. From Saturday till Tuesday, a kind of revival of the process of giving the sweet basil the right use seemed to take place. Like Mr. Amarie, who denounced on the week-end the ministries' turning into illicit money-pumps, and reported on Wednesday impressive success with resolving the files, the PSD leaders also called the PNL-PD alliance demonic on Saturday but made us a surprise over the last days by presenting some dueling on TV which resembled a quadrille. Right at the moment when one could have sworn that the PSD was drinking the innocent blood of the Liberals, and that the Liberals understood � better later than never � that the Opposition's job was not to negotiate under cover, but to oppose, especially when it has to do with a government which looked foolish to the world, all of a sudden, the soft wing of PSD seemed to marry live what we, the naïve, believed to be the tough wing of PNL. What would happen if, in order to give the sweet basil the right usage, we would make a Coalition government? On Wednesday, encouraged by the tender memories related to IMGB � you know well, the one who was imposing order, - Mr. Iliescu gave a harsh speech: the sweet basil is given the right usage, according to the old good FSN tradition, with ornamental epithets like �swash bucklers", �primitives", �hysterical" and other expression of the proletarian anger. The only ingredient missing in Mr. Iliescu's speech calling for unity was the call addressed to the miners, to urge them to come to plant � what else, if not sweet basil?

Zoe PETRE