You know that Simba Makoni is no one's puppet. And I know that Simba Makoni is no one's puppet. It is absurd to posit, as Robert Mugabe and his supporters have tried to do in recent days, that Makoni is a tool of the west, of the British or the Americans. Which is why it strikes me as being questionable for Makoni even to answer the charges, even to deny them, especially in the terms of debate that the crafty Mugabe has set. Better to ignore them, I would argue were I one of Makoni's advisors, than to keep the very question in the minds of the public. The very accusation is set up on “when did you stop beating your wife?” grounds that cannot, by their very nature, favor the challenger.