Hard News: Dirty Politics
2403 Responses
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stephen clover, in reply to
If he’s doing it to seek some kind of absolution then he has a way to go.
Yep, from what I have heard and the comments there, as well as this linked blogpost, that particular story is a long way from finished.
Edit: and, durn it, as an alleged military imposter (!?) potentially not the most credible witness for the defence...
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izogi, in reply to
Unless of course you already know it all
Bingo. What are the options and the available oversight when a PM refuses to investigate serious allegations on the grounds that it’s likely the trail might directly implicate them, or some other selfish reason?
Maybe it is all completely innocent, but there seems enough reason to justify actually finding that out.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
I'm certainly not trying to dismiss the seriousness of the allegations. I'm more despairing that Key and Collins are covered in teflon. Nothing sticks to them no matter how serious, unless it's ironclad.
I think at the very least, Hager's exposé is the beginning of the end for them, and not all the details have surfaced yet. Especially since he managed to put GMOs back on the agenda with Seeds of Distrust, and end Don Brash's political career with Hollow Men.
Significantly, the usual suspects can't bring themselves to accuse Hager of making shit up, so they resort to hoary old Muldoonist ad hominem and Rovian tu quoque tactics instead.
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Did I hear Slater describe himself as a 'Jackal of all trades' on Q+A today?
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nzlemming, in reply to
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If he’s doing it to seek some kind of absolution then he has a way to go
True dat.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Heather du Plessis-Allan reading the book on 7 Sharp. Draw your own conclusion, but did she come across as mildly dismissive of it? Particularly since she emphasised the word 'allegedly' umpteens of times.
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Looking for examples/quotes from Mr Slater or the BlubberyhBlog that are especially egregious. There's the Greymouth headline, and the Chch quake quote- anything else especially stick out?
Asking for a friend :) -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
Looking for examples/quotes from Mr Slater or the BlubberyhBlog that are especially egregious. There's the Greymouth headline, and the Chch quake quote- anything else especially stick out?
Asking for a friend :) -
Steve Parks, in reply to
That's good. And yeah I had seen that 20 minute grilling on 3 news on demand. It was heartening after the relatively poor performance by Espinar in interviewing Joyce on National radio (who then bizarrely became really tenacious when interviewing Cunliffe immediately afterwards).
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Rob Stowell, in reply to
Thanks Deep Red :)
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SteveH, in reply to
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he pissed-off younger Gallery members who quizzed Key in this extraordinary 20-minute standup were righteous.
Key is very clever to avoid looking at the book. It means he can essentially lie and get away with it. For example, he repeated stated that it fine for Ede to access the Labour website using the instructions provided by Slater on Whaleoil. The impression his audience will get from his responses is that Ede did nothing wrong. But Ede accessed the site before the blog post went up. When (if) Key gets pulled up on this he will claim he hadn’t read the book and simply made a mistake about its contents. Many will forgive him the lie and those that don’t see the followup will go on believing Key’s initial version of events.
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Steve Parks, in reply to
- "Particularly since she emphasised the word ‘allegedly’ umpteens of times."
I took that as making a self-aware kind of joke about the whole having to say "allegedly" thing.
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Monday morning should be the real test of (broadcast) media indifference, interest or just basic competence. Key does the rounds, and while you can write Hosking's script already, some of the PM's other interviewers might make an effort. Last week they had the excuse of not having had time to read it - that's gone.
If just one of them could penetrate his breakfast honey-waffle with a simple question: ("Hang on, what does that actually mean? Specifically?"), that would be a start.
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Interestingly, it appears that a vast proportion of WhaleOil readers use Macs and surf in from... outer space?
Or else they're bots, gaming his stats much as Danyl predicted several days ago.
Wonder it this'll have any impact on his tobacco/alcohol/whatever industry backing...
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Hebe, in reply to
Looking for examples/quotes from Mr Slater or the BlubberyhBlog that are especially egregious. There’s the Greymouth headline, and the Chch quake quote- anything else especially stick out?
Asking for a friend :)The whole book makes me feel nauseous - and I thought I was quite tough in political and journalistic terms.
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Hebe, in reply to
This week’s Media Take (and a post I’ll write on Tuesday) will be in part about the responses of other journalists and broadcasters – which have by no means all been bad. The pissed-off younger Gallery members who quizzed Key in this extraordinary 20-minute standup were righteous.
But some older media people dismissing the whole book – including evidence that sitting Ntional MPs paid Lusk and Slater to destroy their opponents in selection contests – just really need to take a good, hard look at themselves.
Every word.
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Interesting that Slater says he did the Ports of Auckland work in the hope they'd be able to claim payment after the fact, and never got it. Thus the stories dying off at a certain point.
I wonder if it works the same for most of his income. Attack the opponents of big companies and hope they pay up when your stories end up in the Herald or on the 6pm news, then stick with the ones that pay and abandon the ones that don't.
Then the only people who do pay are old National party folk, like at the Food and Grocery Council. Interesting business model, shows it always helps to know the right people.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
- “Particularly since she emphasised the word ‘allegedly’ umpteens of times.”
I took that as making a self-aware kind of joke about the whole having to say “allegedly” thing.
I’m really going to regret asking this, but what’s wrong about qualifying claims like Rodney Hide sent sexually explicit texts to a young woman?
I don’t want to get in the way of a good right wing media conspiracy theory, but it seems Hager frequently (and legally, perfectly sensibly) qualified a lot of claims in the book more heavily than they’ve been reported. I’ll defer to PASers with more legal expertise, but I have my doubts “I’m just quoting Whaleoil!” is a particularly strong defense for defamation.
But what’s new – or surprising – about that? As I’ve been banging on about for years, some alleged editors really need a refresher course on the non-trivial difference between an allegation, a criminal charge, and a conviction in a court of law following due process; let alone that no media outlet is a judicial body. I’ve given up on trying to convince the media that correlation (if it even exists) does not imply causation.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
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Primate of the Month…
Key is very clever to avoid looking at the book.
Well, he is the Minister for Listening To Gossip – but as Minister for Intelligence/Security Services/FiveEyes (or whatever that is called nowadays) how can he wilfully (and responsibly) continue to go on with his “I can’t hear you, I won’t read it, but I am prepared to comment vociferously” stance.
He is more than slippery than those 3 monkeys clutching at various orifices
- see no, and hear no contrary view, but he speaks whatever comes into his head…He is a diseased silverback engaged in a truly ugly ‘gorilla war’…
And all he’s got for ammunition is his own sh*t!
Tosser…. -
stephen clover, in reply to
Has anyone asked the PM whether he thinks attack politics are a bad thing?
Guyon v Prime Minister, just now on NatRad: You'd think someone in the media was reading this.
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Credit to Guyon Espiner for doing his job on Morning Report.
Key was reciting his prepared non-responses ("at the end of the day, rugby!" ...) and for once they weren't allowed to pass. He slipped in the Keith Ng = Cameron Slater comparison again, just for good measure (implied, not named). Yuk.
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Email Web
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Key just being on Morning Report says, spinning out of controll.
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It probably won't generate as many headlines as the Collins story, but one of the jaw-droppers from the Espiner/Key interview was the PM (Minister for SIS) revealing/claiming that he doesn't trouble himself - his 'desk" - with OIA requests about the SIS. How very Ronald Reagan.
Perhaps his staff just get out the signature machine used for birthday cards and the like.
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Guy Espiner’s RNZ Morning Report interview with John Key At The End of the Day
[edit - removed a random ’t’]
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