Hard News: Doing the Rounds
63 Responses
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Craig, it could be a perfect opportunity to admit to a very understandable mistake. It could be honest. Hell, it could be *interesting*. Stage managed soundbites are really so dull.
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dc_red wrote:
Funny, could have sworn I've been to lots of weddings lately, and seen numerous children born to married couples (not literally being born, though ... you know what I mean). Maybe I'm unfashionable?Oh, and I bet you know plenty of people who are co-habitating and raising children (not 'illegitimate bastards") without benefit of clergy who couldn't imagine the social stigma - as well as the perfectly legal discrimination - that existed not so long ago. However inelegantly phrased, Bill English isn't wrong. You can argue that this is a good or a bad thing, (and there are plenty who will argue both sides), but the statistical evidence of the increasing number of people who marry later in life (or not at all) speaks for the genuine change is social custom and, yes, fashion, that exist.
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Before we go off thinking Bill English is all that, I guess we should bear in mind this bit of gibberish about the Civil Unions Bill, pointed out to me a reader.
I really hate how this stuff about child in married families doing better than children in split families gets dragged out as an argument for marriage, or for people staying together.
I'd be really keen to see some research, if it was possible to do it, comparing children of couples who were on the rocks and stayed together 'for the kids' and who are now living their relationship as a lie, VS couples who took the different option and split up. That'd be comparing apples with apples. The inclusion of happily married couples who have never got close to living apart is a falsehood.
Or something which takes people who are now back together, but who split up for a while, and puts them on the 'splitting up' side of the statistics.
And people who have perfectly good 'together' parenting relationships without having ever put rings on.
I get sick of people implying that my kids are going to hell because I've made personal choices in my life, which I think are going to be better than a false relationship with their mother.
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Ben Wilson wrote:
Stage managed soundbites are really so dull.Well, yes they are, but so is 'gotcha' soundbite interviews. I feel a small grain of sympathy for politicans who must feel like every word, every move is another round of "does my bum look big in this?"
I'm not suggesting a rousing chorus of Poor, poor pitiful me for any politician or civil servant, just wondering if responsibility for the relentless sound-bit, blanded out and spin cycled nature of modern politics needs to be spread a little wider. -
I'd have been quite happy for Key to have said "Well, I was 20 years old, living in the halls of residence, drinking beer and enjoying rugby, so, yes, I was pro-Tour. But history shows I was wrong."
It was the evasiveness that I found odd.
Perhaps it was not evasiveness but rather he did not have an opinion on the matter and stumbled as he realised he could not make one up on the spot.
At least it seems clear he was not given the questions in advance. That's better than answers prepared the night before and confidently delivered 'live'.
Might have to wait and see how he answers when pressed on more current issues. Can't be equivocal on everything...
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Craig "Gotcha soundbite interviews" are never dull. Misrepresentative, maybe. But "I supported the Tour", is hardly misrepresentative if it is said, even if it's followed up with ", but only because I loved rugby, and have since changed my mind". It's still the truth, and it tells us something. And yes, Key's bum does look big in that, no matter how clever his tailor.
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Craig "Gotcha soundbite interviews" are never dull. Misrepresentative, maybe.
Oh, yes they are. Ever listened (and I use that word advisedly) to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music - which is sixty four minutes of feedback. It's horrible, and tedious beyond endurance - much like Sean Plunkett when they forget to put decaff in the National Radio coffee machine.
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Does this Burq, ah, make his Arse look Fatwa?
Amen his bum looks big when he pretends to not remember the Tour. A really big arse. A really big, insincere calculating arse.
It has precisely nothing to do with racism, tour support, or avoiding misquotation. It's just about being green.
Take it away Kermit...
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This negative perception of Key for not being sufficiently doctrinaire or idealogically driven is curious. I think perhaps the "not right" will be able to always criticise a "not left" leader for either being too doctrinaire or not having firm principles - (s)he can't win with the "not right" really. I never saw Bolger or Shipley as being any more driven by clear principles.
Simon A, it's not a question of being doctrinaire. Yes, there are plenty of pragmatists in politics, who essentially just want to hold power and conserve the status quo, or tinker a little. And that's not confined to parties of the right.
But even the arch-managerial politicos show interest in politics. Key doesn't seem to have done even that. Not just 25 years ago, but throughout his life, until his 40's. For a man so clearly ambitious now, that is quite strange. When did the ambition start? And why?
If he had a view on the Springbok tour, but won't say - that's just standard PR. Staying "on message". But if he never had a view ... that's emptiness. There's a big difference.
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Well, Russell, if Key had said what you suggest, it takes precisely zero imagination to pick the soundbite he'd be hit over the head with for the rest of his life: "...yes, I was pro-Tour."
He sort of did, in the end.
Cause we all know anyone was was pro-Tour was then, is now, and ever shall be a drooling racist don't we?
No. It's actually quite a common thing for "rugby people" who were pro-tour at the time - players, administrators, journalists - to say. The exceptions are really the holdouts like Ron Don who haven't changed their minds.
And I'm pretty sure Lockwood Smith has said he regrets voting against homosexual law reform. I certainly don't think the worse of him for saying so.
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Perhaps it was not evasiveness but rather he did not have an opinion on the matter and stumbled as he realised he could not make one up on the spot.
At least it seems clear he was not given the questions in advance. That's better than answers prepared the night before and confidently delivered 'live'.
Might have to wait and see how he answers when pressed on more current issues. Can't be equivocal on everything...
Therein lies Key's problem. On the one hand he shouldn't have an opinion on everything because there are some things not worth getting into a shitfight over. Yet on the other hand if he wants to be the next PM he will need to have an opinion on everything because the public will expect it.
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Yet on the other hand if he wants to be the next PM he will need to have an opinion on everything because the public will expect it.
Well, Nick, when you've got serious analysis about the impact of this weird but ultimately trivial 'gaffe' was the final nail in Kim Beazley's political coffin, you really have to wonder if that's what the public expects at all. And I don't think it's snidely partisan to ask if Helen Clark's biggest liability has been her tendency to have an opinion on every subject under the sun, whether she knows what she's talking about or not.
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i remember wearing a crash helmet and facing police not much older than me wearing much the same. i remember thinking how aborrent apartheid was. but i also remember thinking was it the right thing to do to confront the rugby establishment with such violence? did we need to threaten disrupting games to get our message across - to threaten "terrorism" - as a Russian refugee in my maths class said to me.
i have some doubts about what went on. but clearly doubts are not allowed niow.
i'm sort of proud to have being apart of the apartheid movement but sort of ashammed too - for the arrogance and inolerance. i'm glad there are others who don't have glib answers to whether or not the supported the tour.
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I remember being dropped off at my grand parents house at the age of 5 because my parents were going into Queen Street to join the protest march. If I'd been a few years older I would've been in there too wreckin shit.
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I think its too early for such deep analysis of Key. we need more entrails. More goats have to be slaughtered in radio and TV interviews before we can hope to plumb useful depths of the new National leadership.
My feeling is that Key may be a man of careful action. He has certainly taken over the National party with a verve and skill. So long as he is doing things like that who needs to know what he thought in 1981 or what his favourite colour is. There has been too much shouting and abuse in parliament. If Key can unnerve and overcome with cunning and composure then he may well win the day by means which none of you have so far taken into consideration. By not staking out ideological or territory he is coating himself in teflon and making himself less vulnerable to attack.
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Okay, so how cool was the EML interview with Hone Harawira about The Tour?
Getting Desmond Tutu to testify at his trial...
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I'm disappointed by Key's tactics on this issue. He ought to be playing the generation game and talking up his appeal to a younger electorate; if his was a tactical rather than principled equivocation/position, he picked the wrong side. He needn't try and out-liberal Labour, but get in the game for crissakes.
Any leader of any party that wants my vote needs to have a consistent and predictable view on such litmus issues - it needn't be mine, but it must be clear and consistent. English shares little in common with me, but I completely respect his moral integrity.
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Kent
I'm not asking for deep analysis. I'd just like somebody to ask him what he believes, and when and why he started believing it. That's not so hard.
Joanne Black's article in the latest Listener is another example of this "don't ask, don't tell" approach. She says "his background is well known" (!), and then Key talks about his former job as a trader - in some detail. But he talks ONLY about the skills that he has acquired, with not one single word about the ends to which those skills might be put. And Black doesn't ask.
If he is only a manager, why didn't he join the Labour party in 2002? Or ACT? Because ... er ...
actually, we don't really know, do we?
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Kent
"...he may well win the day by means which none of you have so far taken into consideration. By not staking out ideological or territory he is coating himself in teflon and making himself less vulnerable to attack."
It's not a new angle, it's the same angle Brash tried. Also John Kerry. He could end up another 'also ran'. People know when they think they know what you stand for. They also know when they have no idea. That's where we are now, and it'll only be a honeymoon for so long. If the Brash script is going to continue to be played, expect a decisive move of some kind very soon, probably just after Christmas.
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Yes, well they're both good points. I do think it is still too early to tell. Either National is going to fly magnificently into the next election under adept leadership or it is going to be cast against the rocks and splinter into bits. We didn't find out much about Key when he was just a front bencher and we are probably not going to find out much with him as leader.
I felt the instant that Brash was promoted that he was what he has turned out to be. I don't have anything like the same feeling with Key. Nor do I feel the need to have him spill his heart out in order to convince me of anything. His actions are what counts. I think enough of the voting population would think the same to enable him to get the top job.
It will be interesting to see what the email thieves have to say when they are caught: email thieves will be caught
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Incidentally, what _have_ the Nats
done with Judith Collins? Normally
you can't get her to shut up.But now...
Craig Y (suspicious)
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Probably most of what Judith has to say is no longer PC in the new Nat party.
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For God's sake - no kidding it's a sensible strategy for Key to not disclose bugger-all about himself in order to vote maximize and minimize potential supporter alienation. THE POINT is what does he really stand for? It's kind of important because if he does get his hands on the levers of government we really don't want him to become another crypto-facist born-again Rogernome.
Citizens of New Zeland, our new Prime Minister John Key: "
Hi People - Surprise! We're selling the lot, no more SOEs, CrOCs or CRIs, I'm selling what's left to my merchant banker mates (don't worry, we'll get a great price, I have excellent connections in that world after all!) Oh yes, and we'll be dismantling the last vestiges of the welfare state, all that profiligate free health, education and welfare, all before those commy bastard Labour types get back in and get a chance to restore it. And just wait till you see my new anti-civil liberties measures - all im the name of fighting terrorists of course - and did I mention ANZUS II and the new trans-Tasman currency the ANZAC? It'll do wonders for corporate profitability. Didn't you know that's what you were voting for New Zealand? Oh well tough, get knotted if you don't like it, not much you can do now"
You see it is actually quite important we know what he stands for in case he does get elected.
PS. I read that J Black article in the Listener, it was the print equivalent of the late Susan Woods jerking-off Key on the tele. I noticed in that article he reckoned he was always really interested in politics since a young boy, and always a Nat. Must have just suspended his judgement for the Tour I guess.
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It will be interesting to see what the email thieves have to say when they are caught: email thieves will be caught.
Seriously, if they get caught, I suspect they'll have to say "I resign from my current position in the national party".
Rodney hide is an idiot. I mean look at this dribble:
Speaking in Parliament during a debate on the Government's spam-fighting bill, he said the e-mails used in Nicky Hager's book The Hollow Men revealed "a degree of political espionage we have never seen in New Zealand or any western country before".
I can't see it topping Watergate. I heard that had a couple of flow-on effects. There was this "leader of the free world" chap who was implicated and resigned.
"It's clear to me that what happened was covert surveillance of MPs, offices broken into, computers hacked from outside," Mr Hide said.
It's clear to me because I'm an expert on... leaking stuff? Computer systems? Or an expert on liking to get my name in the paper talking crap.
"We are closing in on them, and they will be revealed. There is a big story to tell here."
What's this "we" Kemosabe? Did you bring a sniffer dog and spy glass to parliament Rodney?
I mean seriously. What was the point of putting that story together?
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Kyle, you don't get Rod's game. He knows the Nats want this to go away. Only people like him stand to gain from further publicity of the inner workings of National at the moment.
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