comments that National says senior ministers including Michael Cullen and Trevor Mallard have been spreading socially and among journalists.

Oh wait, nevermind, false alarm, they just took it at face value.

Not to say it’s not true, but you’re deluding yourself if you think the average journalist in this country these days bothers to fact check… well… almost anything.

I know. I flatted with one. Wrote most of their stories at the 11th hour and didn’t even bother spell checking, let alone fact checking. Plenty of fact embellishing. Facts can be so boring if you let them chain you down. Sad part is I think they were probably not too bad by most standards – editor was much worse.

I’m sure there are some fantastic reporters in NZ, but I don’t think they’re in the majority. And I’m not even really blaming the ones who are – as I said earlier, accuracy is no longer a priority of the organisations paying them; staff cuts are.

Since when were Glenn or Labour responsible for the actions of NZF w.r.t electoral funding? Oh, that’s right, since never. Glenn is a donor, and Labour championed a law ensuring transparency. So maybe you should direct your ire where it belongs.

How about the open and public donation he made to NZF? You know, the one the deputy PM today suggested was asked for by Winston’s brother?

Give me a break, r0b. There’s no way of spinning out of this one.

Ah hah! AhHHAHAHAHAHA!

I take it you live in a parallel universe NZ in which journalists aren’t being over worked and thrown out onto the street as fast as Fairfax can print off dismissal notices.

Dean: “Oh! So if he donates to the left, hes a generous philanthropist, but if he donates to the right, hes a foreign bagman.”

Fair call.

I think Glenns response to Cullen was pretty whiny though. Simply plays on the fact that people seem increasingly unable to differentiate between money donated, and money donated in secret by special interest groups. Probably the same people who vote for NZF in the first place.

As to donors to the right, no one knows if they are philanthropists or not, because their identities are hidden behind secretive shell trusts. Who are National’s donors? The public don’t know – while Glenn cops all this flack from mean spirited nonentities like yourself simply because he makes his donations openly and publicly. The hypocrisy is sickening.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Sure, glad I could help.

Thanks for clearing that up.

That’s a rather mean spirited way of describing a generous philanthropist don’t you think Dean? Seems to that the ones disparaging Owen Glenn are those on the Right.

I think the best exchange from todays hearing was:

Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen asked whether the person talked like Mr Peters usually did.

Mr Glenn repeated that he was very sure.

“I knew it wasn’t you Dr Cullen…you already had your $500,000.”

Absolutely priceless! I guess it just goes to show that one shouldn’t set about to annoy one’s foreign bag men aye r0b?

What quote? Seriously – what in that article is the proof of these rumours? The article describes the relationship as “sceptic”, but doesn’t provide any proof of this opinion. It repeats Cullen’s “confused” comment, but that’s hardly a vile personal attack (and as the article notes itself: “In fairness to Cullen, some of Glenn’s statements about the timing and motivation of his donations to Labour have been demonstrably incorrect”). So where’s the evidence Tim?

Guyon Espiner is pretty clear that it is Labour insiders who are peddling the Owen Glenn is confused line

Source please? And if it was true, is “confused” – which Glenn apparently has been on occasion – the same as “maligned and ridiculed’?

DPF has said on his blog several times that he has heard this as well

Has he indeed. Heh. Pardon me I do often link to facts cited on The Standard. Facts don’t become untrue just because they appear here. But the rumours spread by DPF I will take with more than just a grain of salt.

So I’m no further ahead. There are rumours and rumours of rumours, but still no verified quote from a Labour MP maligning and ridiculing Glenn. Maybe they have been doing such a thing, but I see no motive for it. I do see a motive for Nats such as yourself to push this line though.

Showboating, that’s what I call it, and I would know.

Rob, Guyon Espiner is pretty clear that it is Labour insiders who are peddling the Owen Glenn is confused line. He says that Labour people are privately spreading it around. I very much doubt he has reason to rely simply on National MPs saying that Labour MPs are privately saying it. These are journalists. They don’t take things that politicians say about politicians at face value. A credible journalist simply wouldn’t rehash that nonsense without hearing it themselves. It’s a nice idea that the National is peddling this “Labour MPs are privately saying this…” stuff around, but it simply doesn’t wash.

John Key stood up in the House today and said he’d had a text message from a journalist who had heard it. You might not take John Key’s words in the House very seriously, but if what he said was untrue, don’t you think a journalist would have pinged him for it already?

DPF has said on his blog several times that he has heard this as well, that press gallery journalists have told him that Cullen and Mallard have been smearing Glenn, by referring to him as “well into his 70s”, “confused”, suggesting he’d been suffering memory loss since his brain surgery at the beginning of the year, and again we saw at the privileges committee today an attempt from Fairbrother and Cullen to suggest that Owen wouldn’t know the difference between Wayne Peters, or Winston Peters, on the other end of a cellphone.

I understand that you will take Farrar’s information with a grain of salt. Fair enough. But you were quite happy, the other day, in presenting your argument that John Key is slippery, by providing 90% of your evidence through links back to articles published at the Standard, so fair’s fair.

Maybe Labour MPs have been running off at the mouth, though it would seem like a chronically stupid thing for them to do, and quite uncharacteristic of such a well disciplined team. Whereas National have abundant motive to spread these rumours, to try and piss Glenn off so that he washes his hands of donating to NZ politics.

But I do know that all that can be factually attributed so far is one mention of possibly “confused’. It’s a long way from suggesting that someone may be “confused’ to “maligned and ridiculed’.

Refs?

Sorry to be a pain, but I know that Hooten wrote it in the SST, I’m not sure whether an actual journalist did.