The country’s main political discourse has been degenerating for quite a while but now things have deteriorated to the extent that targeted audio and video leaks have become quite the norm. So now we have a leaked phone conversation exposing Maryam Nawaz and Pervez Rasheed talking trash about certain journalists on a certain TV program on a certain channel. And while that raises yet more questions, which will ultimately have to be answered, it’s also left people wondering just what is going to be next. For, the one thing that one can be certain of amid all this uncertainty is that whichever side is targeted makes it something of a mission to do the same, or something similar, to the other. PML-N leaders should now expect loaded questions at their press conferences. How was it, when all the time they made such a fuss about freedom of expression, etc, that they were so dead against some sections of the press? And media barons mentioned in the leak should also be made to explain their obvious, voluntary tilt towards political parties. Doesn’t that amount to the media violating its impartiality and playing into the hands of politicians instead of acting as their social, political and moral compass? For far too long every pot in politics has been calling every kettle black and getting away with it. Senior politicians ought to know that they embarrass themselves (more than anybody else) when they lower themselves to practices like recording and leaking video and audio conversations. But any sane society should also know that there are limits to the invasion of everybody’s privacy, even public figures. Such things happen or are allowed to happen only in societies where the rule of law is very weak. And ours is just such a society. No wonder then that our politics also suffers as a result of it. *