Have you noticed that Thai politicians will often try to wriggle out of a difficult situation by using a rhetorical question? You are aware that a rhetorical question is a question that only looks like a question, aren't you? And if it's not a real question, how could anyone give an answer to it?

And wouldn't you know that our current Prime Minister, Samak Sundaravej, is a past master at the rhetorical question?

‘If I did something wrong, how could I come this far?' Does that sound familiar?

Doesn't he think that people can come up with an answer to this question? Why would anyone think that there has to be a connection between doing good and getting far? Or should that be, between doing bad and not getting far?

Didn't Hitler go far? And could you really say that he achieved what he did by doing good? And isn't there a multitude of kind, gentle people, who quietly do good at every opportunity and yet who live lives of humble, if exemplary, obscurity?

Or how about ‘Why did the people, one million, vote for me?' Another Samak gem, wouldn't you know it?

Is it completely beyond anyone's competence to think of reasons why people might have voted for Samak that are not all that complimentary? Given his unstoppable gift of the gab, his uncanny sense of how to play a crowd, and his complete and utter disregard for factual accuracy, don't you think he might have won the votes of people who have little of any interest in politics but who enjoy a bit of a showman?

Does he really believe that every vote in that one million was cast after due consideration of all aspects of his qualifications and a careful comparison with the contending candidates? Isn't it possible that a fair proportion were last minute, impulse decisions to give the old rogue another go? Or how about the probably more substantial number who thought that if they voted for Samak, they would actually be getting Thaksin?

And have you noticed how rhetorical questions often depend on some spurious link between professional position and personal morality? Do the following questions not have a ring of familiarity to them?

‘He is a university professor, so how could he have beaten his wife to death with a golf club?'

‘He is a doctor, so how could he have chopped his wife into pieces and spent all night flushing the bits down the loo?'

‘He is a policeman, so how could he have ...?' Well, there's no limit to how that sentence could end, is there? How many different crimes can you think of?

And have you also noticed the link between rhetorical questions and the physiognomy theory of criminality? ‘With such a kind face, how could he have committed such felonies?' ‘But when his three sons look like such nice lads, how could anyone believe that they bully their drunken way round night clubs?'

Is there perhaps a link here to the ‘TINA' line of argumentation? You do recall that Margaret Thatcher was notorious for justifying some quite gratuitous policies with the brazen claim ‘There Is No Alternative', don't you?

So if you are given to reading the blood-and-gore stuff, do these look familiar to you?

‘Since I was doing 120 kilometres an hour down the wrong side of the road with no lights in the pouring rain when the pedestrian stepped into the road, what else could I do but hit him?'

‘The man in the toilet gave me an envelope stuffed with 1,000-baht notes and said that his party leader wanted to be my friend, so what else could I do but vote the way he asked? Gratitude is a very important part of Thai culture and wouldn't it be ungrateful to do otherwise?'

‘The older students told me it was a way of showing the university spirit, so what else could I do but take off all my clothes and roll about it the mud like a mindless lunatic?'

Why has no academic or masters student in search of a thesis topic realised what a treasure trove of material there is for a study on the use of rhetorical questions in Thai society? But what would be an appropriate title for such a study?

Is there no end to the use of rhetorical questions?