Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Kracklite,
As Russell has said rhetorically to Paul Holmes, “What is your fucking point?”, I’m intrigued by the fact that Joyce, Farrar et al are emphasising polls that say that the public don’t feel that the contents of the tape matter overmuch, or that the recording may have been illegal and unethical… and studiously ignoring the real question, as many of us see it, whether the response has been insane. Shirley that’s not an acid tent.
Quite. I don't regard poll results as the determinant of right here, and I will not be surprised if any poll damage to National is very modest. It's not about that for me.
If it turns out that sending police into newsrooms a week out from an election has benefited National politically, I may express some very unhappy thoughts.
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
I think the past tense is appropriate, they way Key and Joyce have treated him is appalling.
I'm still waiting for an interviewer to invite Joyce to repeat various of his comments.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Thanks for giving us a precis of the Holmes ‘mind’. No way I’m going to ruin a good coffee by reading him, though. Those snippets alone are in danger of souring the milk.
I'm actually wondering how many weeks in a row he'll be allowed to use his paid Herald column to plug his fucking book. Seriously:
I continue to get wonderful mail about my book, Daughters of Erebus. These are letters from intelligent, professional people, people who for years have known that there was injustice after the Erebus crash and that justice continues to be denied to the pilots of Flight 901.
They are writing to thank me for making the effort. And it was an effort, one hell of an effort but I never for one minute thought it was not an effort worth making. Someone had to do it.
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In today’s Herald …
A stern, well-referenced editorial:
There is no question that, as framed so far, the police inquiry is a fishing expedition to establish if there is anything that might help them understand just what the Prime Minister alleges was breaking the law. Such fishing expeditions are regularly decried by the courts and defenders of the public’s rights.
And a complete mess of an opinion column from Paul Holmes:
If John Banks had met John Key in the latter’s ninth-floor office and it was known a tape recording had been made of the meeting no one would be demanding the tape be released. It is absurd.
No, Paul, it’s your argument that’s absurd. If the conversation took place behind closed doors in the Prime Minister’s office, rather than in public at a media event in a cafe full of people, where the two men had invited 40 journalists and camera people, yes, that would be different. What’s your fucking point?
There is no suggestion that they were in any way conspiring to commit a crime.
No, there isn’t. No one has suggested that. Again, what is your fucking point?
Oh well. At least this thing is sorting out the journalists from the celebrities.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Andrew E,
I get angrier every time I think about it.
I'm learning to manage it.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
I can’t say I have followed it enough to say which way it swings or is swung except it seems to mirror the polls which show about 50% National and quite a few Winston followers who I don’t come across in the flesh at al
I recall there being plenty of perfectly nice and mutually supportive people there -- but also a much higher percentage of angry nutbars than you would find in actual real life.
Mind you, it's got nothing on the Yahoo NZ forums, which tend to make Kiwiblog comments look like Public Address. After all these years, I'm still sometimes amazed at how horrible people feel they can be online.
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Sorry if this is too cheeky Russell
Not at all.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Tom Semmens,
I find the totalitarian circular logic of Joyce the most disturbing aspect of all this. It seems he cares nothing for morals, ethics or common sense in justifying his actions. He just needs the polls.
Two current Members of Parliament came there after being commercial radio station owners. One is Joyce, the other is McCully. Sayin'.
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And here's the BoingBoing thread on the past week's events. I feel so proud ...
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Rich Lock,
Wasn’t the point more that if one is (possibly) too close to the action, and thus wants to try to get an idea of what’s on the mind of the yer average punter on the clapham omnibus/outside the beltway, then the TM forums are a good place to take the temperature of public sentiment?
I keep making the point that I don't know or understand what the wider public thinks about all this right now, and I certainly don't need to read the Trade Me forums to know my own mind.
I'm just personally appalled at what has gone on.