David Farrar obviously lost it today. In a post called “Anonymous Smears” he is upset about Eddie pointing out Murray McCully and his mining shares. There wasn’t an value known when the post was written, so Eddie reasonably asked if there was a conflict of interest.
Well Farrar is welcome to disagree with the post. That is simply his opinion and he is known to have more than a few of those. Frequently in my opinion – they are just wrong. I have no doubt that some of the other authors will deal with the issues on McCully.
I just want to make my opinion of other parts of his post related to this site quite clear. I think that he is making an idiot of himself.
He seems to think that The Standard has a ‘view’. Now I know that Farrar isn’t particularly technically literate. But surely even a fool would understand that “The Standard” is just some software running on a server. It is the people who write opinions – not a machine. I program the computers for a living and the only thing more stupid in my opinion are some of the trolls that I deal with periodically in this site.
David has read our About he knows that this site runs as a cooperative. Authors write their own opinions and there is no editorial control apart pulling a post after it is put up. I know that he is aware of this because he has written many posts about our site and how it runs in the past. So why is David pretending that the site has an editorial policy? Well the alternative is that he’d have to be upfront about his attacks and direct them at a person. It is easier (and probably safer) to direct it at an abstract concept that can’t defend itself.
David Farrar points to several posts from 2008 from The Standard during the Winston Peters stuff that year as examples of a ‘double standard’ by ‘The Standard’. He links to and quotes from two posts by the psuedonym Steve Pierson.
Steve was listed on our contact page at the time under his real name. David knew this and had written about him – so this wasn’t anonymous. It was a single author out of the 12 or so who were writing at the time. It was someone clearly expressing their opinion, in fact the quotes that David quoted clearly show that Steve was expressing his own opinion.
But now we come to crux of what the David is upset about…
The Standard suggest McCully is corrupt for following the rules and declaring his $31 of shares (yes they did not know the amount, but the issue is McCully has acted entirely appropriately) yet they defended Winston time and time again over horrendous breaches of the conflicts of interest regime.
All Eddie asked was if there was a potential conflict of interest and a potential for corruption. Eddie who decided what tags and categories were on the post. ‘The Standard’ doesn’t put categories in. He didn’t ‘suggest’ that McCully was corrupt – you did.
But that pales against your other pathetic misrepresentations about this site. Now I don’t like Winston or NZ First – in fact I detest the whole party. The other authors seemed to have similar views. However unlike you we tend to believe that you have to have evidence before you lynch them. In other words that is the process of justice.
There were few (if any) posts ‘defending’ Winston. What there were was a number of posts by different authors commenting on various issues around the witch-hunt at the time. Frequently what they were commenting on was the content of the hysterical outpourings of posts attacking Winston that you managed. I remember seeing you pour out something like 20 factless posts in a few days on the subject. My comment during that period and later on the subject was that you and many of the other right wing bloggers were simply acting as inciters for a lynch mob.
What the various authors here said at the time both in posts and in comments can roughly be summarized as
In my opinion, all of those things have subsequently shown to be correct. There were no charges laid against either Winston or NZ First. The only proceedings against him was a obvious kangaroo court of the privileges committee that split straight down party lines. There was no evidence of corruption or even conflicts of interest apart from in your hysterical fantasies. In fact the whole thing ended as being a total non-event with virtually everything that you said over about a year proving to just be a mirage without substance. But that is your specialty…
David, over the years you have set a very low standard for political blogs in this country. Your wee outburst today appears to simply be because you don’t like a much milder questions of the same sort directed at your friends in your favored party. I’d suggest that you get used to it because asking questions of your friends is part of what this site was setup for.
In my opinion, you’re known as being a bit of a hypocrite, frequently a bit of an idiot, and I think that you should also do something about that hysterical streak you have. I also think that talking about The Standard as being an abstract entity is lazy cop-out for such a fearless political poseur as yourself. However if you care to do it in the future, then I’ll happy to help you understand the concept of a co-op.
Now is this anonymous smearing or an honest opinion?
Lynn Prentice
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