Of all the commentary pouring forth on the Green Party's new leadership and apparent re-orientation, the Herald editorial must surely be the most splendidly patronising.
It's right and proper for the Greens to declare that they could, under the right conditions (including, it appears, the departure of Don Brash) work with National. I would think that the most that could mean is, say, an agreement, in exchange for policy concessions, to abstain on confidence votes to make things look a little less dicey if National finds itself with a narrow majority to govern (ie: the same arrangement they have with Labour right now).
The Herald's writer foresees something a little more dramatic:
But they will need to pay more than lip service to their newly adopted stance. They will gain nothing by disclaiming they are left wing if they have policies that favour closed borders, industry protection and maximum state ownership of the economy.
This is the assumption that being Green is just about saving whales and stuff. It's actually a lot more complicated than that. For all that DPF and his mates might be rejoicing at the Greens having seen the light, a look at the respective platforms of the two parties reveals that they are effectively at loggerheads on issue after issue: Justice, Housing, Industrial Relations, Energy, Welfare, Transport, the Treaty, Resource Management … nearly everything. The two parties may find some common ground - probably around mutual suspicion of big government - but they disagree vastly more often than they agree.
But here's the thing: most of the Greens' policies are culturally rooted in the Green movement and reflect the long-term expectations of core Green voters; and many of National's have been dog-whistled up in the last three years. Any future accommodation will rely far more on National amending its policies (and moving towards the centre) than the Greens substantially changing theirs.
An indication of how far apart they really are might be found in John Key's blurt yesterday. The kinder face of the National Party is upset at plans to develop the Hobsonville airbase land for housing. About 3000 dwellings will be built, with about 500 of them designated for public housing. And it's the latter that Key objects to, describing as "economic vandalism" the plan to let public tenants live amongst the private owners who will occupy the bulk of the development. After all, he said there was potential to build "something pretty good there."
I mean, don't these people have slums to go to or something? Can't they go and live under power pylons like poor people are supposed to?
The fact is, this is public land, and its disposal presents a rare opportunity to create public housing in the way it is demonstrably most likely to succeed: as part of a mix. If that means that the neighbours have to lower their sights a little bit, so be it. Housing policy isn't about ramping up their property values. Nice to see Sue Bradford putting Key in his place.
Anyway Labourblogger Jordan Carter forgets to follow the Despise All Greens script in congratulating new co-leader Russel Norman, and Norman, on the evidence of his error-ridden Campbell Live interview, needs a bit of work.
There's still time to catch up on the utterly repellent efforts of some of the leading commentators on the American right to minimise - well, excuse, actually - Haditha. Michele Malkin posted a couple of photos (from LGF) of Palestinian children carrying rifles in a parade and mused that this says something about "the idea of children being used by the insurgents." What the fuck? In one house alone, marines shot at point-blank range girls aged 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, while their father pleaded for their lives. Where was the baby hiding her IED, then?
Instapundit, meanwhile, advanced the frankly amazing theory that there was no incentive for soldiers to show human decency when the liberal left will bag them anyway ("there's no point in behaving morally when they're going to be called monsters"). Wow. But wait, there's more: "these claims of outrage ring rather hollow," he insists, when some blogger no one's ever heard of is venting death fantasies about Bush. Oh, of course. Because that's exactly the same thing as executing babies in real life.
R J Eskow sums up some more of the same.
I have no patience for the "war is hell" walk-away argument. Yes, I think the Iraqis know that war is hell rather better than the rest of us. How could they not, when they are being murdered by all sides on a daily basis? But doesn't it seem just that little bit worse when they're murdered by the people sent in to liberate them?
And, no, as even Hitchens admits, this isn't an isolated incident. The new Iraqi Prime Minister doesn't think so. The BBC's Newsnight has interviews with Iraq veterans who don't think so either. But there are people in high command who chose this war and chose the manner in which it would be prosecuted and they shouldn't be allowed to pretend that gay marriage is the real issue.
Anyway, all rounded off by the best Olbermann-O'Reilly smackdown ever: Bill O'Reilly slandering US WWW2 troops, refusing to aplogise, Fox News falsifying transcripts of his show, you got it. Part One and Part Two.
On a quirkier note, reader Glenn Cassidy pointed out that "the really trippy thing" about the Nasa video I linked to yesterday "is that there appears to be another New Zealand on Titan. You can see it quite clearly on the page you linked to before you run the video. It's in the centre right of the photo."
Oh. My. God. So it is. Freaky!
And finally, I need your help for something I'm working on. I invite you to get back to me with any and all interesting and/or useful local XML/RSS/RDF etc feeds that you know of. They can be commercial, public sector, whatever - anything but blog feeds. Don't be shy about plugging stuff you're directly involved with. I'll tell you why presently, but for now I'm just on the hunt.