Hard News: Dirty Politics
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Ah yes Campbell Live did "at the end off the day" to death tonight .... I suspect Key will never say it again
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My granddaughter loves the book The Wonky Donkey. NZ loves The Shonky Johnkey.
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A better Master of Muppets clip:
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I suspect the Slater family and their BFF Collins will support their puppet JK for only as long as it suits them. Maybe 'till the end of the day.
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Jos,
So who or what is Tinkerbelle?
Quote from nzlemming:
She's running scared. Such body language. Can anyone identify the staffer who's recording the interview on her phone?
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Umm, does someone other than Fran O'Sullivan run her Twitter account?
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stephen clover, in reply to
So who or what is Tinkerbelle?
It’s the nasty anti-gay slur directed at Chris Finlayson by Trevor Mallard and Clayton Cosgrove.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
I'm seriously thinking about voting for Chris Finlayson in Rongotai (which would be my first vote for a Nat ever) because I think he's an asset to parliament, whilst I believe Annette King is one of that past-it right-wing clique and not an asset to either parliament or Labour.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
She’s running scared.
Such body language.Her and Key,
it's like listening to guilty 8-year-olds...
...how do they even follow their own logic?
Blindly!
...and they're 'leading' us?
Once again, how does a Minister of Justice
(or Prime Minister for that matter)
refuse to study a document/book
that indicates perfidy in parliament?
They are duty bound to investigate,
or they should step asideCue more petulant juvenile avoidance
coupled with unedifying braggadocio,
unfortunately that still spells 'winner' to some... -
.
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Geoff Lealand, in reply to
Rich; do think seriously about this. A vote for Finlayson means a vote for National.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
crazy paving...
cyclepath - psychopath
I'm glad someone else spotted the potential 'slurred lines'
from John Key, he has a mangle for all seasons...
...the so-so sociopath -
SteveH, in reply to
Rich; do think seriously about this. A vote for Finlayson means a vote for National.
It won't help National get elected, if that's what you mean. It would only help if National were to win more electorate seats than their party vote gives them. That won't happen.
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Every time I see this clip I think of what will happen if Colin Craig should win...
and Peter Cook is so spookily Craig-like in appearance
(not in delivery though thankfully)and this may be Jamie Whyte's secret playbook...
<sorry for reposting>
:- ) -
Lovely piece by Mandy Hagar on her brother http://mandyhager.blogspot.fr/p/occasional-political-rant.html
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Stewart, in reply to
Quite right, Hilary. That is a sweet piece of writing by Mandy Hager and should be required reading for all kiwi journalists.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Quite right, Hilary. That is a sweet piece of writing by Mandy Hager and should be required reading for all kiwi journalists.
++1
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Steve Parks, in reply to
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?
Nothing. I was just saying my take on du Plessis-Allan’s use of ‘allegedly’ was not the same as DeepRed’s, i.e. I don’t think it was meant to sound dismissive of the book per se.
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nzlemming, in reply to
Transcription - Harre-Ferguson RNZ 20140818.txt
As I said up thread, Judith Collins can take whatever slings and arrows come her way. But I think all politicians might want to think really hard about bringing electoral agencies into campaign argy-bargy in any way, shape or form.
Right. After our exchange on Twitter I sat down and listened to it again, as, while I had thought it wasn't a great interview, I hadn't picked up what was so incensing you. To my surprise, I found that the crap aspect of the interview was (once again) Suzie Fergusson and that Harre, when unimpeded by being talked over made the very succinct point that Fergusson was falling into exactly the trap that Hager outlined in his book, of taking Slater's smears and amplifying to the non-blogreading public. So I transcribed it (attached). Your indignation is completely misplaced. Let me quote the only paragraph that mentions the Electoral Commission:
[00:01:18.22] Suzie: And so, as a result of that, what then do you think should happen with Judith Collins?
[00:01:23.20] Laile: Well, I think there is no doubt that any Prime Minister who was leading a government, um, that gave a moral compass to New Zealand would have removed her a long time ago. The, um, the evidence provided in this book, ah, shows clearly that she should be removed. This is the woman who is part of a strategy to reduce voter turnout in the election and she is the minister in charge of the Electoral Commission, our public body charged with engaging voters, enrolling them and ensuring that they turn out to vote. She should go.
Nothing there impugns the Commission, it's all about Collins and whether she is fit to be the minister in charge of it, which recent events and revelations might call into question. It's absolutely relevant for anyone to question the probity of a minister who has been shown repeatedly to lie when caught out manipulating public opinion, not to mention public money. If you don't think a minister can have influence over the work of a government agency either by direction or managing funding through the Budget process, you're either naive or willfully stupid, and I've never thought of you as either of those.
Take your rosette off and really look at what these people are doing to your party, and to the country. And stop reading what you want to hear into what politicians are actually saying.
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Right. After our exchange on Twitter I sat down and listened to it again, as, while I had thought it wasn’t a great interview, I hadn’t picked up what was so incensing you.
And that’s fine – but I just rapidly got rather tired of being accused of “false equivalence” trolling. Because I really don’t see how saying that interview was lousy (IMHO and YMMV, of course) was drawing an equivalence with Key’s, which I’m very happy to characterize as an slimy, evasive train wreck. And, yeah, I don’t like anyone accusing our electoral agencies of partisan bias – never have. And I’m not giving LH a pass because she just did it more passive-aggressively than most. Why bring the Electoral Commission into an attack on Judith Collins at all? What dog was being whistled for there, and was there any basis in fact for it?
Take your rosette off and really look at what these people are doing to your party, and to the country. And stop reading what you want to hear into what politicians are actually saying.
You know, I could respond in kind and suggest you take your own advice and decide whether Harre accusing an inconvenient but perfectly legitimate question of “amplyfing Cameron Slater’s agenda” is any more desirable than Key dismissing critics of… well, being Nicky Hager's useful idiots.
As I’ve also said on Twitter, you can’t go preaching transparency and accountability for thee, but not for me. Nor do I think just saying “I don’t know” (which Harre eventually did about KDC’s alleged texts) is ipso facto dishonest or weak. Politically inconvenient, yes. But I don’t care – she was asked to respond to a perfectly legitimate question, and she tried pulling a Key. Not good enough, and here’s why.
Based on current polling, Internet Mana will return 2-3 MPs to the next Parliament and they could well be essential for any Labour-led Government whether anyone else likes it or not. If you’re happy for them to hand wave off any criticism or tough questioning from the media as the work of Cameron Slater finger-puppets, and passive-aggressively impugn the integrity of civil servants who can’t respond, well be careful what you wish for.
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nzlemming, in reply to
If you’re happy for them to hand wave off any criticism or tough questioning from the media as the work of Cameron Slater finger-puppets, and passive-aggressively impugn the integrity of electoral agencies who can’t respond, well be careful what you wish for.
Once again, she did not impugn the integrity of the Commission, but the integrity of the minister overseeing it. This is not the same thing and I'm equally tired of you pretending it is.
Further, "tough questioning" has to be more than talking over answers you don't want to hear, which happens continually with Ferguson. Harre made excellent points about how RadioNZ and other media were continuing to respond to Slater in just the way he wants, amplifying his smears. You, yourself, have accused him of being a fantasist, as Harre does at 00:05:40.02, so it's perfectly legitimate to ask Ferguson why RNZ is taking his 'revelations' seriously. Ferguson is worse than Simon Mercep was, as an interviewer. She wants sound bites that make her look perceptive rather than answers to her questions.
As to the false equivalency charge, I stand by that. You segued from John Key's trainwreck to Harre's nowhere-near-trainwreck as "not the only cringe inducing interview" and never bothered to differentiate.
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I haven't seen anything much about the "Roast-buster-esque" behaviour exposed by Nicky's book, as shown here.
I hope this is followed up, as the NZ public's disgust at the Roast Busters was heartening, and it'd be good to see it applied to the appalling behaviour of these people in the National Party.
For those who haven't read it, I thoroughly recommend the article by Andrew Geddis about the book at pundit.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
This is not the same thing and I’m equally tired of you pretending it is.
Pretending? FFS, Mark, I’m done with this until you get a grip on the difference between disagreeing with someone conclusions (which you’re perfectly entitled to do) and calling them a bad faith liar. Again. Despite being asked, repeatedly, to cut it out. If I found that at all useful I’d go sperlunking in the Kiwibog sewer, though to be perfectly fair you’re nowhere near that bad. Nobody here is.
As to the false equivalency charge, I stand by that. You segued from John Key’s trainwreck to Harre’s nowhere-near-trainwreck as “not the only cringe inducing interview” and never bothered to differentiate.
Oh, come on. This is getting silly – I didn’t think either interview was terribly good and if you want to read anything else into that Tweet it’s all on you. Again, to be fair it’s not like I’ve never gone off on anyone on Twitter half-cocked then proceeded to efficiently shoot off all my toes – it’s an occupational hazard when you’ve got a lot of bite-sized gobbets whizzing by so fast it’s really easy to miss a LOT of context or misread tone. (Someone come up with a sarcasm font, stat!) I don’t expect anyone to read my entire feed before responding to a Tweet, but it’s really nice not to be presumed to be a lying bad faith partisan hack.
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Brent Jackson, in reply to
... but it’s really nice not to be presumed to be a lying bad faith partisan hack
Except that, unfortunately, that is the impression that you are giving.
If you would like to dispell that impression, you could try agreeing that Laila Harre was not impugning the Electroral Commission, but was actually questioning whether Judith Collins was fit to be the Minister overseeing it.
Post your response…
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