Getting to Know Your President: A Question of Civil Service Exams...

There are two things that are consistently getting me into that shaking my head mode and muttering, "are you serious?" Yes, the FPI and SBY. Funny how each prefer to go by the acronym rather than the full version of their monikers. I wonder if their are any other similarities or like interests?

Anyway, this is not a post about why the FPI and SBY are equally bad for Indonesia. This post is to focus only on SBY.

The recent Prospective Civil Servant Entrance Exam (CPNS - Calon Pegawai Negeri Sipil) was held at the Ministry of Trade recently. It was different from all previous exams in one very noticeable way. It included a question on SBY and his musical talents. Specifically, the question asked, "which of the following songs was on President SBY's third album?" It was multiple guess with A, B, C, or D as your choices. So, if you are like me and think the President cannot sing for crap, then you still had a chance at guessing the right answer.

If you are shaking your head and going WTF is this all about, then you are probably not alone. I am still smiling at the thought of the question making it onto the exam in the first place. I am also chuckling at the prospect of how the president might answer the questions that will undoubtedly be asked about the appearance of the question in an exam of this kind.

The Minister of Trade has gone on the record saying that she was not aware of the question being there, in fact the Minister needs to check and confirm first. It will be interesting if this is just a case of a candidate wanting to cause a bit of a firestorm of bad press. But, I guess time will tell.

However, if the question is there, then this begs the question, "how did it get there?"

Is the appearance of the question in a civil service exam a result of some good old fashioned corruption, collusion, and nepotism? Or is it just a simple case of a low-level employee in the Ministry of Trade finding something to amuse themselves with now that "all" the porn sites have been shut down?

Whatever the case may be, this is just a little bit more bad press for the president to deal with. The president seems to be in a bit of a downward spiral, at least in the sense of being in a state of constant spin in order to maintain his personal popularity. My guess is that history will be less kind to him and his legacy will be a non-legacy. A president that did two terms and achieved well below expectations.

I would have said "C". When in doubt it is always "C", isn't it?

Ho hum...