“How could Tiso possibly have known?” said a by-now liquefied Brown. “Unless … Tiso is Rawshark. Yeah, I said it.”

Much more likely is a dirty politics conspiracy between Tiso and Brown. Just saying.

The majority of New Zealanders didn’t care enough to get rid of the dirty politicians – how can a word be a word of the year if it had no real effect even in New Zealand.

If Dirty Politics had no real effect then why is it likely to be top of the list? Why is it still being discussed, still being referenced, and still affecting the political process and media in NZ? It's now a core reference point for everything else that happens. That's huge.

Johnkey

There's Jokeyhen too.

Can you have an analogy with something that doesn’t exist? At least there is a beltway in Washington.

That's why it's analogy of something that does exist, and it's why people use it.

Interestingly Thorndon Bubble means far less to me, as it's never been part of my milieu (had no idea what Thorndon was until you said).

Do you have an appropriate NZ alternative for beltway, given it get used as an analogy rather than literally?

it's a variation on the Bart Simpson defence "I Didn't Do It, Nobody Saw Me Do It, There's No Way You Can Prove Anything!"

We could call it the CrosbyTextor Hat defence.

#gamergate

IMP

Identity Politics