I've been slighted, and it hurts.

The Panamanian government's National Security Council says its secret agents, code-named "El Pintor" and "Oficial Renzo," have uncovered a plot to "maintain the level of popular discredit and political rejection" of the Moscoso administration, "reduce public support" for the government, divide the Arnulfista Party and "neutralize its electoral capacities." Government and Justice Minister Arnulfo Escalona alleges "ideological falsity" and wants to have anti-corruption activist Enrique Montenegro, whom the National Security Council admits undercover agents have been following around since early last April, thrown in jail.

A really cool conspiracy like that, and nobody invited me to join! I want to be on Escalona's deviationist list too! Where do I sign up?

Of course, it takes no falsity for a journalist to contribute to the public's low opinion of the Moscoso administration. All one must do is report the facts and ask the right questions about the HP-1430 helicopter insurance fraud scam, the mysterious fire that destroyed the Civil Aviation Directorate's records as its practice of gassing up the private planes of privileged ones was under investigation, the Moscoso administration's policy of nepotism, political patronage in teacher assignments, the partisan dues deduction from public water and sewer utility workers' paychecks, all the bogus criminal charges by executive branch officials against journalists, gun running from Nicaragua to Colombia's AUC death squads using the Panamanian National Police as one the cutouts, the sale of Panamanian visas to illegal immigrants, the sale of Panamanian seamen's certifications to unqualified persons, the government's introduction of cigarette maker Phillip Morris into the public schools for the purpose of spreading the message that smoking's a grown-up thing to do, the bid-rigging that has delayed the paving of the Pan-American Highway in the Darien, the broken promises to Panama's poorest communities, the broken promise of the government Transparency Law, all the inefficiency, all the shakedowns, all the self-serving ads at public expense, all the bribery allegations.... Et cetera.

Nor are the ideological requirements for joining the conspiracy particularly strict. Notice that as Enrique Montenegro sat at a long table at the El Prado restaurant on Via Argentina waiting for the police to come and take him away, the people seated with him included ex-President Guillermo Endara, like Moscoso a member of the Arnulfista Party, and several former government ministers. Also in the picture was former Panama City Mayor Mayín Correa, a right-wing politician who has in her past some screaming rows with Endara. When Montenegro takes to the street to protest that which he considers unjust or corrupt, quite often it is in association with gadfly law professor Miguel Antonio Bernal, who ran against Correa and traces his political roots to the left. And meanwhile over at Mango's one of the two leading presidential hopefuls, Alberto Vallarino, says that a guy whom the National Security Council has fingered as Montenegro's co-conspirator, former Panama Defense Forces Major Aristides Valdonedo, is his friend and that the government's allegations are unsubtantiated. The other leading presidential candidate, the PRD's Martín Torrijos, surely must be laughing, but his party, which would also want to "neutralize" the Arnulfistas' "electoral capacities," is doing its snickering without the news media present.

So if nobody is going to invite me to join the conspiracy, I'll just have to stray off into ideological incorrectness on my own. It's probably better that way anyhow. It lets me maintain the political independence of The Panama News. I don't have to take any fishy-looking document, no matter whom it is supposed to serve, too seriously. And I get to be that loosest of cannons, a deviationist's deviationist.

Still, it would be nice to have a few co-conspirators.