Kuala Lampur, Oct. 23 -- "One idiot is one idiot. Two idiots are two idiots. Ten thousand idiots are a political party."

These days, we have to work increasingly hard to verify what we read on the Internet.

A famous name attached to a quotation is no guarantee that the person actually said it.

So, when I came across the quote, I spent a considerable amount of time trying to trace its origins. I could not establish who first said it in precisely these words.

But I liked its rather wicked observation too much to abandon it. So, a clarification before I proceed.

While the quotation is widely attributed to Franz Kafka on the Internet, there is no reliable evidence that he ever wrote or said it.

The closest documented source appears to b...