Dom Post on cheap shots
Today’s Dom Post editorial takes aim at cheap shots from Labour:
Labour’s attacks last week on National leader John Key reeked of the desperation engendered by that sort of poll result. First there was an attempt to diminish the lustre of Mr Key by linking his economic management skills to the failure of his former employer, Merrill Lynch.
Then there was an exercise in shroud-waving by Prime Minister Helen Clark. She produced a “back-of-the-envelope” calculation, based on American deaths in Iraq, to suggest 60 New Zealanders would have been killed had Mr Key been able to commit New Zealand to the coalition of the willing.
Neither stands up to scrutiny. Mr Key left Merrill Lynch long ago and, were he of a mind to respond in kind to what is a facile attack, could point out that it got into trouble only when deprived of his skills. As for Iraq, he could remind Miss Clark that most of the Americans killed there died after the initial invasion and that she committed defence personnel there for a good chunk of the subsequent occupation, operating under a United Nations mandate, without suffering casualties.
Yes. Finally a mention of the fact Clark had troops there for 12 months.
It is understandable that Miss Clark and her colleagues have decided to embark on negative campaigning, and attempt to shift the focus to Mr Key. That must seem a better strategy than leaving voters to focus on her inexplicable refusal to do the honourable thing and cut NZ First leader Winston Peters adrift. He and his party are now trapped in a swamp of evasion, half-truths and changed versions of events, which have left him at best guilty of rank hypocrisy over party funding and, at worst, of lying to the public. Yet she, by sticking with him, has waded into the same mire.
And not just lying one but time after time after time.
And finally on the EFA:
Attacking Mr Key must also seem better than leaving voters to focus on what Electoral Commission chief Helena Catt has called the “chilling effect” on democracy of the Electoral Finance Act. That act was pushed through by Labour despite warnings that it was an ill-considered, ill-drafted piece of legislation that would make taking part in the political process arduous and possibly dangerous.
It is small comfort that those caught in its stifling web are largely its advocates. Labour is uncertain how much of the cost of union pamphlets praising it and attacking National policies it will have to include in its election expenses, while Progressive Party leader Jim Anderton has been pinged twice, which he says is bizarre.
What is bizarre is that he tried to argue to the commission that his newsletter should not be subject to the same rules faced by members of the public, because he is an MP and it should be protected by parliamentary privilege. That is just another symptom of the arrogance of power that afflicts this Government, and that has seen voters turn against it.
They really do think they are above the law. Mind you, only because so often they have been and got away with it.
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:46 am
Given that Helen Clark has declared herself to be the chielf stategist EVERYTHING that Labour throws at Key from her claiming that Key “might” have body baged serviemen (as opposed to Clark who HAS bodybaged sevicemen) to that talking cumspot little Jimmy throwing himself into traffic comes right back to her desk and no one elses.
She will not be playing the well “I can’t be held responsable for this” game. The buck stops with Helen Elizabeth Clark this time.
How’s that worken out for ya’ll Helen?
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:47 am
“They really do think they are above the law. Mind you, only because so often they have been and got away with it.”
Dead right. Why suddenly the Dom Post is critical? Feeling the heat from the blogosphere that’s why. If it wasn’t for Kiwiblog and any number of other Internet outlets, the mainstream media would be in usual fawning leftist mode. (The editor of the BOP Times actually wrote in glowing praise of the EFA when it was first proposed)
The mainstream media have betrayed journalism for too long. Good to see editorials like this at long last, but there is far too much ground to make up. Its damn hard for me to see newspaper, television and radio, and the so called journalists who work there as anything but enablers of the bunch of crooks and cronyists, the socialist politicians, who have taken this country into the gutter. The media, in the main as culturally Marxist as the Labour Party, have faithfully promoted the ideal of big government, rather than shining light on its excesses of power, its corruption and the slow but steady destruction of what was once a great little country. They’re traitors to their profession. Unforgivable traitors.
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:54 am
Just more of the sterling leadership we have come to expect from Helen.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:19 am
My Grain of Salt column in today’s Rotorua Daily Post:
Negative campaigning comes easily to the Labour team. You can practically see Helen Clark quivering with hatred and rage whenever she talks about National. Filthy rich pricks! Vile scum! How dare they be more popular than us!
But hatred is a dangerous basis for fighting a war. It blinds you to your enemy’s strengths and distorts your view of reality. It was revealing that while John Key was in Otara talking with ordinary Kiwis who don’t share all his views, Helen Clark was in Mt Albert talking to her adoring party faithful and putting up a billboard of herself.
This is a danger for Labour: that they listen only to themselves, mistaking their own partisans for ordinary middle-of-the-road Kiwis, and imagine that the filth and bile they are vomiting forth passes for fair comment.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:25 am
Put it this way, you have Helen scaring pensioners with her “National would have killed 60 of our kids/grandkids in the Middle East” nonsense and her young activists are throwing themselves in front of cars for the media to think Nats want to kill children…. the campaign is off to a flying start for Labour.
I am sure they will start the heavy artillery soon!
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:39 am
They haven’t asked me for quote yet clint.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:06 am
DomPost:
“…….. As for Iraq, he could remind Miss Clark that most of the Americans killed there died after the initial invasion and that she committed defence personnel there for a good chunk of the subsequent occupation, operating under a United Nations mandate, without suffering casualties….”
DPF:
“….Yes. Finally a mention of the fact Clark had troops there for 12 months……”
YOU SAID IT, DPF. Hell has frozen over!!!!!!! The DomPost’s Tim “Emmeline” Pankhurst has broken from the Kremlin line on Iraq!!!!!!
You said it, Redbaiter. There is hardly anything more illustrative of sickening lefty dishonesty and manipulation of truth than the Dompost’s performance over the last few years, on Iraq in particular.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:44 am
Well I guess its better late than never that the snivelling MSM like Pankhurst start to relect the majority of the citizens views I mean theyve spent 9 years trying to prop the Socialists and defend them from the indefensible.
But theyve run out of steam In the face of a retaliation by the citizens the MSM have done a flip flop. They have finally found good ethics and good morals is good governance.
But we Freedom Fighters will never ever forget those 9 years of them supporting corruption and lies refusing to ask the hard questions just printing Press Releases from the Socialists.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
russel..do you actually receive payment for that drivel..?
and of course we are all lookng hard at key..
..he is our sarah palin..
..ok to look at on the surface..
..but then..
..a whole bunch of ‘oo-err!’s/question marks underneath..
..phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
“You can practically see Helen Clark quivering with hatred and rage whenever she talks about National”
YOU may be able to “practically see” that…
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
and how about those lehman-dudes..!..?..eh..?
ring-fencing $2.5 billion for themselves..!
..brilliant..!..you can’t keep those masters of the universe down..eh..?
..’innovative’ in a crisis..!..or what..?
http://whoar.co.nz/2008/fury-at-25bn-lehman-bonus/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
[DPF: And 10 more demerits for off topic. Again we have general debate for this stuff]
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I think the tide has turned.
It has always been my experience of watching one-sided television coverage of events which have without question favoured the left.
It has surprised me to see and hear the beginnings of dissent amongst the 4th estate towards the anointed one.
The only media more left wing in the first world is the USA. It beggars belief the crap they spout in defence of Obama. How someone with his lack of experience and associations over decades with the sort of nutjobs he has hung with is even standing is beyond me.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
“How someone with his lack of experience and associations over decades with the sort of nutjobs he has hung with is even standing is beyond me.”
Dock – perhaps some people LIKE leftie politicians?
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Yes I know they do RRM.
The point I am trying to make is why are most journalists left wing.
Is it the left leaning education system-the left leaning journalism schools?
The desire to demean anyone who espouses morals and standards and the basis of decency as their moral compass?
Their demand to say that they demand to see that ‘Whatever goes” and who are you to say ‘Not for me’!!
A point in case is the unbelievable hysteria the left media have exhibited over Sarah Palin. They are shit scared that a generation of young women may use her as a role model to base their lives by. This is not in their long term plans for the Western civilisation as they know it.
What?
How dare she say that life begins at conception and to abort babies is murder!!
It’s a womans choice if she wants to use abortion on demand as a de facto condom.
How dare she not have an ingrained hatred for all things male!!
How dare she not be a leftist-all strong,focussed, goal oriented and successful women who have succeeded in a mans world are left.
How dare she try to be the first woman Vice President when Hillary was meant to take that place in history.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
“The desire to demean anyone who espouses morals and standards and the basis of decency as their moral compass?”
What does that even MEAN? I’m a left voter, and I believe I have morals and standards.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
RRM
By morals and standards I mean for instance-
Your extreme leftie doesn’t believe that 16 is the correct age of consent! Who says 16 is right! There is a worldwide left movement to lower it to around 12 as a first step. Already the case in some countries of Europe.
That if you feel like it you should be allowed to take any drug you want, regardless of the effect on others.
That any religious belief instantly classifies you as a consevative Christian fundamentalist.
That any belief in personal responsibility and reward for hard work makes you a fascist who wants to throw the mentally ill out on the streets.
I am talking to the extreme here but it is very hard to overlook the facts regarding the bias towards someone like Obama who would be laughed out of the room if he was a white conservative Senator looking to run for POTUS. The media would attack him like rabid dogs. A little bit like they have to Sarah Palin.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
“Dock”, it’s nice to see a recent arrival on Kiwiblog sticking up for conservatism. Have you read the article “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, by Friedrich Hayek?
Here is an excerpt:
“…….for the exceptionally able man who accepts the present order of society, a multitude of other avenues to influence and power are open, while to the disaffected and dissatisfied an intellectual career is the most promising path to both influence and the power to contribute to the achievement of his ideals. Even more than that: the more conservatively inclined man of first-class ability will in general choose intellectual work (and the sacrifice in material reward which this choice usually entails) only if he enjoys it for its own sake. He is, in consequence, more likely to become an expert scholar rather than an intellectual in the specific sense of the word; while to the more radically minded, the intellectual pursuit is more often than not a means rather than an end, a path to exactly that kind of wide influence which the professional intellectual exercises. It is therefore probably the fact, not that the more intelligent people are generally socialists, but that a much higher proportion of socialists among the best minds devote themselves to those intellectual pursuits which in modern society give them a decisive influence on public opinion…….”
Read the whole thing:
http://mises.org/story/2984
The whole thing is actually an incredibly prophetic explanation of how in our day, the whole human-induced global warming scam has got so much traction…..
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Dock, RRM, I recommend P.J. O’Rourke’s hilarious “How to Explain Conservatism to Your Squishy Liberal Friends”
http://www.buildfreedom.com/tribute/o'rourke/explain.html
Sorry, the whole address hasn’t pasted like it should, copy and paste it in your browser or Google it.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
On Iraq and the media, notice how NOBODY DARES even yet to make one-liner assessments like “If Helen Clark had her way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power…..”
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
“..[DPF: And 10 more demerits for off topic. Again we have general debate for this stuff]..”
i’m sorry..!..off fucken topic..!!
these scumsucking cunts call me a fucken ‘p’ dealer all fucken day..you say fucken nothing..!
(despite repeated requrests from me to do something about it..!!)
and fucken off-topic..???
the post is about cheap shots at key..
..his peformance/the culture of the money-traders..
..coudn’t be more fucken on-topic..could it..?
what a fucken joke..!
your ideologicaklly twisted-biased censorship..
..so fucken rightwing..!..eh..?
..from rat-biter down..
..you are all opponents of free speech..(your platitudes/lip-service to the contrary just complete and utter bullshit..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
..shall we call you bryan..?
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
phil,
lay off the P. It makes you prone to emotional outbursts.
Drugs are bad, mmmkay?
[DPF: 20 demerits]
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
how are people..just popping up anywhere..and calling me a ‘p’ dealer..
how the fuck is that ‘on-topic’..?
pretty fucken ‘random’/all over the place..eh..?
your censorship policies/enforcement..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
If you wish to complain about a comment, you e-mail me – do not whine about them here which further pollutes the thread.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
You have it coming to you, phule, after what you said about the good Mr Power.
I told you that you shouldnt complain about people saying nasty things about you after that.
And now you cant complain about people hypocritical.