I'm sure many of you, dear readers, have tried, like I have, unsuccessfully, to decipher the ANC government's response to US Ambassador Reuben Brigety's Molotov cocktail he tossed to Pretoria on Thursday.
The only possible conclusions I've been able to reach are all terrible for South Africa, the government, and the ANC.
Let's pause briefly and go back five months to that fateful night in December when the Lady R docked at Simon's Town naval base.
South Africans aren't stupid, and when the good people of Simon's Town saw this red monstrosity spoiling their view of dilapidating arms deal ships on a good Thursday afternoon, they alerted the media.
The story made headlines, and after initially bumbling their way through a response, Defence Minister Thandi Modise, herself trained in guerrilla warfare in uMkhonto weSizwe, committed to a version later in December.
Pushed by the country's vigilant journalists for answers, Modise said: "We do know, however, that whatever contents this vessel was getting were ordered long before Covid started."
Modise said she was still awaiting all the "paperwork" about the mysterious arms deal and would clarify the matter once she had all the answers. This never happened.
But what is important is that President Cyril Ramaphosa's minister of defence told him (assuming he still reads the local media) in December that South Africa received or shipped (or both) arms from, or, to Russia from a national key point at a time that Russia was at war with Ukraine.
In a normal, functioning democracy, this would have set off red flashing lights. A normal, functioning president would immediately have summoned Modise and demanded answers from the head of the South African National Defence Force. Because, you see, the National Conventional Arms Control Act of 2002 prohibits us from selling weapons to a country involved in a war.
If we were trading guns with Russia in December, this could mean a lengthy jail time for all those involved, including ministers, generals, arms dealers, and functionaries who engineered the cover-up.
Like with many things concerning Ramaphosa, it is unknown if he knew and what he did. But we can confidently say the president was not perturbed enough to initiate a judicial commission of inquiry to get to the bottom of what has now become known as #LadyRussiagate.
At the end of January, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited South Africa and registered her concerns with the authorities about Lady R's visit. She was allegedly told the South African authorities would investigate what happened at Simon's Town - again, nothing happened.
So, when Ramaphosa sent his special envoys, including his dodgy former advisor Bejani Chauke, to Washington DC in April to smooth things over with the Americans ahead of Russian warmonger president Vladimir Putin's planned visit to Durban for a BRICS summit in August, they should not have been surprised to receive questions about Lady R.
Again, they had no answers. Shoulders were shrugged.
"If you Americans claim you have intelligence that something dodgy happened in Simon's Town, show us the evidence," seems to have been the mantra of our compatriots.
And so Ambassador Brigety, no longer only famous for his flamboyant bow ties, became the loudhailer through which the United States, South Africa's second-largest trading partner, tossed a petrol bomb at our gutless foreign policy and exposed the ANC's inability to govern for the world to see.
In the wake of Brigety's announcement that he would "bet my life", Lady R left the shores of Simon's Town stocked with arms and ammunition, Ramaphosa hastily announced the formation of a judicial inquiry to determine the truth of what happened in December.
This may yet be the lowest point of his presidency.
The government's formal position that there are no records of an official arms transaction between the states of South Africa and Russia exposes the possibility that something much more sinister may have happened. And that Ramaphosa did nothing since December when his defence minister alerted the world of an arms sale at our naval base.
It is not surprising a dodgy arms deal with a country at war would have been kept off the books. The Americans have now forced Ramaphosa's hand to open every single book, slip and receipt about the transaction.
The only remaining possibility, if weapons left with the Lady R (and it's hard to see how the US would have made this claim without evidence), is that the SANDF allowed a national key point to be abused for an illegal arms deal involving third parties to benefit a country at war. This is the kind of stuff that topples governments; it should topple governments.
I struggle to see an innocent path for Ramaphosa or the ANC out of this. Their criminal inaction to do anything of substance since Modise blew this whistle in December - or their treacherous silence about what happened in the dark of night, if they know - is further proof the ANC is no longer fit to govern.
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