Mark Moloney, Jakarta – Ridiculing Indonesian Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring has gone global with international television and online news portals taking turns to poke fun at his latest faux pas – shaking hands, or not, with United States first lady Michele Obama.
Tifatul, an outspoken conservative Muslim, said on popular social networking Web site Twitter that he would not shake hands or touch a woman he did not know.
However, perhaps overcome with the emotion of the moment, video footage shows Tifatul eagerly leaning forward to accept Michele Obama's handshake and even bowing deferentially, in scenes that were shown on The Colbert Report in the US and covered by online news portal The Huffington Post.
Stephen Colbert, a topical satirical comedian, devoted a segment of his show to pointing out the ministers about-turn on his previous comments, and subsequent defense of his actions.
In the popular television show, Colbert states sarcastically that he understood Tifatul's trepidation at touching the first lady's hands and that it was tantamount to touching another erogenous zone on a woman's body.
Colbert jokes, "What are knuckles but finger-boobs?" Colbert highlighted that Indonesians flocked to Facebook and Twitter to scold Tifatul for his "hypocritical behavior."
He also lays into the minister over his defense of the handshake by reading Tifatul's Twitter explanation in mocking tones. "I tried to prevent [being touched] but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me so we touched," Tifatul tweeted afterward to mitigate the growing swell of disdain.
Colbert then points out to howls of laughter from the studio audience how "It was totally her fault. Totally her fault!'
He then gives a commentary of the slow-motion footage in which he describes Tifatul's hands as "reluctantly outstretched toward her" and his "mouth turning upwards at the corners in the traditional Indonesian sign of revulsion."
The Huffington Post and Gawker.com also ran pieces questioning the minister's integrity and suitability as a public figure in articles that will cast shadows over Tifatul's already sullied political profile.
Tifatul Sembiring has previously outraged liberal society by suggesting AIDS funding is a waste of public money and linking natural disasters to immorality.