The arrest and internment of Chen Shui-bian, former president of Taiwan and burnt-out beacon of the island’s miraculous democracy, has been tracked locally with all the intensity bestowed on the first OJ Simpson trial. Instead of blood stains and ill-fitting gloves, media in Taiwan and China have pored obsessively over the “Son of Taiwan’s” prison conditions, down to the thickness of his gruel, as well as over the diaries and poems he has penned behind bars.

The most recent accusation was that the former leader of the opposition Democratic Progressive party had been caught by security cameras snacking on peanuts and chocolate bars while, supposedly, on a 16-day hunger strike against what he says is a politically motivated trial. It might be my personal bias, but almost more damaging than allegations that his two-term administration was scandalously corrupt is the idea that an embodiment of Taiwanese democracy should have been scarfing midnight snacks while boasting of supreme willpower in going without food. If true, this is a bit disappointing for the man whose election in 2000 cemented Taiwan’s remarkable transition from authoritarian police state to multiparty liberal democracy.