On Tuesday the front page of The Star's PM edition yelled in large and bold type: "Lewd Twitter picture scandal." What's going on, I wondered to myself, remembering that not even the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scored as much space or as large a type size.

It seems that some "weiner" (or is it "wiener"?), a US congressman by the name of Anthony Weiner, admitted to sending a "lewd" photo of his under-wear-clad crotch to "a young woman" over Twitter. (Why, if his crotch was covered, was it lewd? And what if it had been a young man or an old woman? I'm only asking.)

Weiner also came out with the remarkable statement: "My wife is a remarkable woman. She's not responsible for any of this," he said.

Well, I should hope not. What was the suggestion? That she took the photographs for him? I mention this story by way of reminding us that, notwithstanding his questionable reputation among some people with regard to the fairer sex, our president, Jacob G Zuma, has never done anything as reprehensible as Weiner, nor has he ever blamed any of his wives, partners or fiancées for anything.

When Zuma began tweeting on May 10, his first micro-blog comprised the following laudable if boring words: "Democracy is flourishing in SA thanks to the active participation of all citizens. It's wonderful. Vote 18 May."

In fact the president has not only been behaving himself lately, but most folk have - at least for the moment, and with only one exception - stopped picking on him.

On Tuesday evening, I saw Zuma on TV publicly upbraiding some officials for doing a lousy job (picking on officials publicly is something of a first for Zuma) and, according to Wednesday morning's edition of the Daily Dispatch, Zuma spent Tuesday touring schools throughout Eastern Cape, "assessing the state of education".

Following the recent local elections, during which the ANC took a couple of body blows in the form of an increased Democratic Alliance share of the vote across the country, there was talk that those who would be kings and their followers would take it out on Zuma.

It was strongly rumoured that the elections results were the kiss of death to Zuma's plans for a second term, that the "party" would use those results to dissuade him from standing in 2014.

But, so far, there's not been a peep out of the ruling circles, as they are sometimes called. In fact there's been surprisingly little mud-slinging within ANC circles about the local elections. If anyone is plotting (politically) against Zuma, he (or she) is keeping it quiet and/or his powder dry.

There was also an opportunity to biff Zuma a little a week or so ago when he went off on a much-vaunted "peace mission" on behalf of the African Union to Libya to talk Brother Leader, Colonel Muammar Ghadafi, into having a truce and arranging an exit.

But, even though the spin doctors hauled out, as might be expected, the usual high points of Zuma's negotiation skills - democratic South Africa's founding talks at Kempton Park in the early nineties, KwaZulu-Natal reconciliation between the IFP and ANC, and the Burundi negotiations - not too many people seriously thought that there was much of a chance that, having had a little chat with Zuma, the, er, mercurial Ghadafi was going to fold up his tent and go off to a teaching job at Unisa.

So, though there was a brief international flurry around his journey to Libya ("Will South African's Zuma pull it off?"), no one made too much of a fuss about him coming out of Libya without having achieved much, if anything.

The only person who has apparently resuscitated his anti-Zuma campaign is Julius Malema, leader of the ANC Youth League, who recently made some comments about former president Thabo Mbeki having been a "successful" leader who secured a two-thirds majority for the ANC.

This has been explained by political pundits to have been ANC-speak for an attack on Zuma by the chubby-cheeked youth league youngster, i.e. Zuma couldn't even achieve what his predecessor, whom Zuma had unceremoniously ousted, had achieved. But soon after his statement, Malema denied that it was an attack on Zuma, so who knows really?

In short, there's been a lull lately in the anti-Zuma voices we usually hear. But, even if Zuma doesn't make any new babies or send any silly tweets, I daresay we're going to be hearing them again in the near future.

This article first appeared in the Daily Dispatch.

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