A bad workman blames his tools.

Listening to Barack Muluka and PLO Lumumba on #JKL last night I was heartened that neither of them considered asking the politicians to "take politics out of the discussion of public affairs." It is not politics that has failed us. Politics is neither good not bad, but it can lead to either good or bad outcomes. Politicians, on the other hand, the principal practitioners of politics, can be good, middling, bad or catastrophic. 

Mr Odinga, on some days, is very, very good. On other days, he is spectacular. but every now and then, he has a bad day and has to start from the Bottom. #SabaSaba  was a bad day for Mr Odinga. The President is not a very good politician, though he has very good days. On balance, he seems to have more good days than bad and as a result he is the President of Kenya and Mr Odinga, who has had more bad days than good, is not.

Mr Muluka gave us an example of a bad politician: Moses Kuria, the TNA aspirant for Gatundu South, the President's old seat before he was elected president. Mr Kuria has brought notoriety on himself with his statements and his antics. In the heat of political combat, a lot is said and a lot is done in order to persuade the people to elect someone or not to elect someone else. A lot of the saying and doing is said and done by politicians. Mr Kuria has distinguished himself across different media including TV, FM radio, and social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter with the shallowness of his intellect and the viciousness of his vitriol against certain other politicians. If he stood for something - anything - it would at least be an explanation. But Mr Kuria seem to be of a kind with 99% of all Kenyan politicians: they are in it for themselves. Their constituents and their needs don't mean anything to them.

#Sabasaba was billed as a rally that would "change things" by its sponsors. The 13 demands by CORD, as Mr Muluka and Prof Lumumba both agreed, are legitimate; the manner in which the demands were made and the threats that accompanied the demands are not legitimate means for dialogue. Both are right to question the politicians' motives by the manner the politicians have made their demands for dialogue. If they were the astute parliamentarians they have styled themselves to be and the constitutional lawyers they have persuaded their constituents they are, they would have found more civilised means of stating their case. But because they are unwilling to do the boring work that all politicians must engage in - educating their constituents, talking to their constituents and not at them and so forth  - they have given their constituents the only valid reason to choose someone else come the next election: they are lazy and while lazy people usually find the easiest method to accomplish a task, in politics there are no easy methods.

Both CORD and Jubilee find themselves in the enviable position of having some of the worst political specimens that the gates of hell have rejected. If only the President and the former Prime Minister did what they were required to do - lead - the staggering amount of negative political noise being made would abate and the President would not have to be reminded every single day that Gatundu South is soon to be represented by a man a world apart from him in manners and common sense; a man many would refer to as a thug.