Posts by Russell Brown
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@Matthew:
I have wondered no such thing.
That was my recollection of what you said on The Panel yesterday.
And, Russell, your claim that Glenn was not necessarily a reliable witness should surely be balanced by the fact that the Foreign Minister is hardly a reliable witness either.
As I said above: see Selwyn Cushing. But Glenn had been expressing demonstrably barking recollections of the actual matters at hand. He apparently couldn't remember when or why he donated to Labour (or for that matter, when he met Clark), when those things were a matter of record. Perhaps she could have launched an investigation into the finances of her minister's party (even though there was no indication the law had been broken) but even then it would have been quite a step to have publicly called him a liar, not to mention the end of her government.
Also, I have noticed an extraordinary trend by so-called liberals to almost go on the defence for Peters.
Really? You can hang that on Chris Trotter based on that bizarre "gang-rape" claim, but, for goodness sake Matthew, I wound up by praising the journalists who have brought to light the matters that will probably finish off his career. If you thought I gave any indication I'd be sorry about that, then it was quite unintentional.
I think it's just that I'm a bit calmer than you are.
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i don't think i've ever heard the foreign minister sounding more tired. he only even managed to fire up about twice.
I was put in mind of a broken-down robot, croaking out its lines as its batteries died.
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Even if you assume one is as credible as the other, I still don't get how Clark sits on this until yesterday. Except that the SFO inquiry followed so quickly that it dissipated some of the heat around her - so I see how the timing would have worked to her advantage.
And if that's what happened, it would be quite the ballsiest bit of spin in a long time.
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Fair enough, but you know something -- if you run an identical scratch-and-sniff test over Winston (and would this guy actually have a political career without allegations reported on page one that, somehow, never quite stack up), Glenn still strikes me as more credible.
And I'm sure Selwyn Cushing would agree.
But Clark chooses her words carefully, and they were: "he's never lied to me". She bought a different kind of trouble by not volunteering the information, but seems to have calculated that ignoring the vehement denials of her own minster while not being quite sure of Glenn's recall would have been worse.
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Thought you might want to talk about this ...
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And Clark knew back in February.
Which, if that's all there is, is much less bad than "Mike Williams gave Winston Owen Glenn's phone number to hit him up for some sly cash."
She still has to explain why, if Glenn told her otherwise in February, she's been publicly accepting Peters' account.
I imagine her meetings with Peters have been ... interesting.
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If Peters stepped down as FM, is he still able to vote on legislation?
If he was fired from his position as FM, could he still vote?In both cases he could, along with the rest of his caucus. But that would be underestimating his potential to be a self-serving dick.
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I loved that ad! Like Islander, made no impact on my consumption of the product. :)
Just like that:
And Hugo said you go
And I said no you go,
And soon he was back
And then Dad his the track
So we ate in the back
Feelin' better insideA drive isn't funny
On an empty tummy
Thank goodness for Kentucky FriedAlthough I can't recall the beginning at all.
I recall KFC's arrival as the first global fast food chain. Colonel Sanders even visited. It was the hot and happening thing to get your parents to buy, but I think I only ever ate it a handful of times. It just wasn't very nice.
The last KFC I recall eating was a chickenburger in Taupo 20+ years ago. It was really, really horrible.
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TPM reproduced this Andrew Sullivan post in full, so I might as well too:
The op-ed in today's WSJ by the McCain duo of Lieberman and Graham is far more important for this election, it seems to me, than parsing the dynamics of the Clinton-Obama marriage. What they are laying out in very clear terms is the agenda of a McCain presidency. The agenda is war and the threat of war - including what would be an end to cooperation with Russia on securing loose nuclear materials and sharing terror intelligence, in favor of a new cold war in defense of ... Moldova and Azerbaijan. I'm sure McCain would like to have his Russian cooperation, while demonizing and attacking them on the world stage, but in the actual world, he cannot. Putin and Medvedev are not agreeable figures, and I do not mean in any way to excuse their bullying. But this is global politics, guys, and these are the cold, hard choices facing American policy makers.
And in this telling op-ed Lieberman and Graham simply do not even confront them. It's all about a moral posture, with no practical grappling with the consequences. It's the mindset that gave you the Iraq war - but multiplied.
John McCain is making it quite clear what his foreign policy will be like: tilting sharply away from the greater realism of Bush's second term toward the abstract moralism, fear-mongering and aggression of the first. Not just four more years - but four more years like Bush's first term. If the Democrats cannot adequately warn Americans of the dangers of a hotheaded temperament and uber-neo-con mindset in the White House for another four years, they deserve to lose. If Americans decide they want a president who will be more aggressive and less diplomatic than the current one, then they should at least brace for the consequences - for their economy and their security.
In my view, the fear card has only one truly compelling target in this election: McCain.
He has a way with words.
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As for the rest of Owen Glenn's letter, I can't really what conceivable motivation or benefit he'd gain from lying.
The Herald's vox pops suggest that's a widely held view.
It was almost touching to hear the emails from the Peters faithful on Morning Report today.
It's a real pain if it means the ETS legislation can't be passed, but I can't see this can go on much longer. The ideal scenario for Clark is Peters stepping down "while the matter is resolved" (only an optimist would really expect a resignation), but that depends on a sense of propriety I fear just isn't there.
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