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Thaksin Shinawatra's best chance is to make all that is happening to him look like déjà vu all over again. And we can see it happening already, in some foreign media editorials, in political blogs, through his legal representatives and through his own emotional statements. Here, according to the mammoth public-relations efforts joined knowingly or unknowingly by journalists abroad with a stereotypical concept of "democracy", is a politically persecuted man driven out of his home country simply because he was too popular.

Last time it was the generals who were demonised. For all the criticism, much of which was justified, democracy was returned without blood being shed and with stone-throwing mobs not treated like Muslim protesters during Thaksin's time. Most of the contentious actions of the coup-makers focused on allegations that could not be handled by the almost non-existent checks and balances of his era. The controversial investigations were finally completed and forwarded to the normal judicial process, and an election was allowed, followed by an overwhelmingly pro-Thaksin Parliament and government.

What does Thaksin do now? He runs and tries to discredit the current judicial process. He once wrote a letter to the US president claiming an anti-corruption campaign besieging his government was a conspiracy to overthrow a democratically elected leader. After the coup, his propaganda machine was working at full speed to endorse this claim. Thanks also to their own shortcomings, the generals and their interim government found their image in tatters.

The courts, which have violated no principles so far in dealing with the corruption charges against Thaksin and Co, now have to brace themselves for more of the same. When he cannot dispute the evidence, Thaksin seeks to destroy the credibility of the process that acquired it in the first place. Whereas the Pojaman tax-evasion ruling was based on hard evidence, not to mention what the judges perceived as the bad example that the former first lady set for society, the truth of this is having a difficult time making it through current distortions.

In an editorial on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal all but said it was sorry for Thaksin. It highlighted his claim that "people who directly and indirectly supported the coup were appointed as members of organisations responsible for taking against me", while failing completely to mention, for example, how solid the case against Pojaman was. The fact that in the Ratchadaphisek land case, Thaksin and his wife were accused of breaking laws that existed before the coup was also of no significance in the paper's eyes.

The cases against the couple were originally simple ones, made complicated only by their efforts to avoid the hand of the law at all costs through the abuse of political power.

Claims of political persecution or conspiracy only raise a string of exasperated questions: did somebody put their shares in their servants' accounts to frame them? Were they tricked into not paying taxes for the Shin Corp sale in a bid to topple his government? Were Ample Rich and Win Mark "planted" by his accusers as his ghost companies? Did one Cabinet member fool him into giving the Exim bank loan to the Burmese junta?

Instead of seeing the current judicial campaign as an effort to put things right, the Wall Street Journal cast a negative light on the process. To sum up its view of the process, the paper considers it nothing that will strengthen Thai democracy or make its leaders more accountable to the people. It was a daring conclusion that ignores a tiny little thing: how can Thailand's democracy be deepened and its leaders made more accountable if we are a country that is incapable of even addressing those alleged crimes?

It's the question that Thaksin and his public-relations men want to shield from the rest of the world. The root cause why Thais had to take to the streets, giving the military ammunition to oust Thaksin in a coup, or why it took a coup-installed committee to investigate what should have been simple criminal or political crimes gave way to a superficial analysis: he was too popular to stay.

In the long run, it could be as the Wall Street Journal pessimistically predicted, that Thailand has no positive future with or without Thaksin. However, while the paper seems content with Thaksin's "imperfections", the term he used in his parting-shot statement, a lot of Thais may be saying the "imperfect" way of dealing with his alleged crimes is the best chance this country has.