Nothing personal, John

74 comments on “Nothing personal, John ”

• Comments are now closed

1. Robinsod 1

   16 April 2008 at 10:18 am

   How on earth did you manage to do 47% of your Key posts on policy?! Are there that many ways you can say “There is no policy”?
2. Steve Pierson 2

   16 April 2008 at 10:22 am

   There’s quite a few on his ‘wage drop’ policy. Then there’s his privatisation policy. Policy flip-flops I spilt between trust and policy.

   Quite a few of the others are ‘where’s the policy?’
3. dave 3

   16 April 2008 at 10:37 am

   Many of you “policy” posts are on Keys “we would love to see wages drop”, please point out where this is policy or change your inaccurate pie chart. In order to be a policy flip flop, it has to be a policy first.
4. r0b 4

   16 April 2008 at 10:38 am

   Policies. Trustworthiness. Competence.

   Exactly!

   Hello “mainstream media” – are you listening?

   Excellent post.
5. Occasional Observer 5

   16 April 2008 at 10:40 am

   Yet again Steve uses dubious statistics and shonky graphs to present absurd conclusions. Firstly, Steve doesn’t tell us what the source of his data is, or how he classified it. We’ve come to expect that from him.

   We can tell that just using the link “posts on John Key” as his data source is seriously flawed: it relies on posts that have “John Key” as one of the categories. Alrealdy, on the front page of the Standard, there are multiple posts that are principally attack pieces on John Key, that are not classified in the “John Key” category.

   Next we rely on Steve to classify those posts, accordingly, as being about “trust”, “competence”, “spin-busting”, and “policy”: as if those categories are mutually exclusive, relevant to this discussion, or, more importantly, suggest that they’re not personal attacks. We’re relying on Steve, who hasn’t any credibility so far, to make that determination for us, since he’s not honest enough to provide credible data.

   But instead of just criticising Steve’s approach, here’s a constructive alternative suggestion. If readers really want to know whether the Standard is obsessesed with John Key, here’s the methodology I used.

   I cut and pasted the front page of the Standard, which includes 25 posts, which I took to be a reasonable sample of all of the posts made at the Standard. You can argue whether it is a representative sample, sure. I then did a find of all the instances of “Key”. Here I used case-sensitive search, to exclude the use of the word “key”. 56 matches were reported.

   I then did a similar search of instances of the word “Clark” on the Standard’s front page. Just six responses were returned.

   So, on the front page of the Standard, the Standard’s authors refer to John Key 56 times, to Helen Clark 6 times.

   My conclusion is that the Standard is suffering a clear case of Key Derangement Syndrome.
6. Steve Pierson 6

   16 April 2008 at 10:42 am

   dave. key did say ‘we would love to see wages drop’, he was talking about new zealand, he was reported correctly, and he was being serious. He and APN management forced a ‘clarification’ out of the Bay Report, but the quote was not retracted (I listed the forced retraction coverage under trust).

   If you think my pie chart is inaccurate go and count them up yourself. otherwise, stop accusing me of falsehoods without evidence.
7. Graeme 7

   16 April 2008 at 10:43 am

   I thought Key’s argument was that people were attacking him instead of running the country.

   People have been attacking Key for ages, the line is that is now all that they are doing (supposedly to the detriment of the economy, or something like that).
8. James Kearney 8

   16 April 2008 at 10:49 am

   Occasional Observer needs to get a sense of humour. Was funny hat and dead seal not enough of a hint for you?
9. Steve Pierson 9

   16 April 2008 at 10:52 am

   I didn’t have space to address that, Graeme, and frankly I think it’s a such a weak argument even the press gallery won’t run it. Sensible gentleman that you are, you know that it is a silly claim from Key that Ministers are ‘wating taxpayers’ money’ on making up songs about him.

   The song was written over a few beers at Molly Malone’s on a saturday night by Grant Robertson and then performed. They then repeated the song when Clark was held up before her closing speech. Now, had they not been singing for those five minutes, they would have been sitting in their seats, so how is that change a taxpayers money?

   Frankly, Ministers work 70 hours plus a week all year. Ten minutes performing a song is hardly the end of the world.
10. r0b 10

    16 April 2008 at 10:52 am

    Actually I think it’s time for Occasional Observer to change their name to Compulsive Commenter.
11. Robinsod 11

    16 April 2008 at 10:54 am

    Yes indeed – that’s why National has so much policy. Because they never ever attack anyone.
12. Steve Pierson 12

    16 April 2008 at 10:54 am

    OO. blah blah. if you doubt the validity of my classifications, do it yourself.
13. insider 13

    16 April 2008 at 10:54 am

    How does this so called whine compare with HC’s “the Herald is picking on me” and “their cartoonists have been doing it for 100years”?
14. Occasional Observer 14

    16 April 2008 at 10:55 am

    Ah, so when three quarters of the Standard’s posts are about John Key, and just 5% about Helen Clark, a spurious, stupid, dishonest graph from Steve Pierson, trying to disprove that the Standard’s suffering from Key Derangement Syndrome, should go unchallenged?

    It is shameful that when Helen Clark stands up at a Labour Party congress and proclaims that after nearly nine years, Labour has the ideas–the only thing the Labour caucus, and its supporters at the Standard can talk about–is John Key.

    You guys are obsessed with him. Despite Steve’s shonky analysis, you can’t deny that. It’s sad that you are so focussed on him that you can’t put any intellectual energy towards fixing society’s real problems.
15. Steve Pierson 15

    16 April 2008 at 10:57 am

    insider. unfavourably. I invite you to do a graph showing the Herald’s coverage of the PM – positive vs negative.
16. r0b 16

    16 April 2008 at 11:00 am

    the Standard is suffering a clear case of Key Derangement Syndrome.

    Are you calling Key deranged? No personal attacks here please.

    I always thought that KDS stood for Klark Deficient Spelling, a term describing the vicious personal attacks of the Kiwiblog Right.
17. mike 17

    16 April 2008 at 11:00 am

    It’s in a graph so it must be true!
    Steve – cut the crap. Its labours election plan to attack Key in any way it can and you are carrying that through the blogsphere as is your right but please don’t dress it up as anything other than a smear campaign.
    The polls show the NZ public don’t like this sort of attack politics so by all means keep it up.
18. Occasional Observer 18

    16 April 2008 at 11:02 am

    Steve,

    I just did doubt the validity of your data and assertions, showing you where your mistakes were, and how you were slippery, sloppy, and dishonest by presenting it as credible data. I presented an alternative methodology, which much more closely resembles reality.

    56 references to John Key versus 6 to Helen Clark, on the front page of the Standard. Even among the classifications the Standard uses, which isn’t complete, there are 132 posts classified as John Key posts, and 5 as Helen Clark posts.

    The Standard is obsessed with John Key. If you were anything other than dishonest, Steve, you would admit it.
19. Daveo 19

    16 April 2008 at 11:12 am

    OO- with all due respect, I think you’re an idiot to take such offense at what is clearly a joke graph.
20. Occasional Observer 20

    16 April 2008 at 11:15 am

    Again, Steve tries to deflect attention from his shonky statistics, by asking others to do a graph of Herald statistics.

    Here again, he’s asking people to exercise their discretion in classifying data. But the Standard’s claims that the Herald is biased against Helen Clark just isn’t supported by fact.

    There are over 4,000 Herald stories that feature Helen Clark. You can see them at http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&q=“Helen Clark” site:.nzherald.co.nz&btnG=Google Search&meta=

    Most of them offer no opinion at all. They are news stories. Some of them are puff pieces. Others have a degree of opinion in them, of which there is a genuine mix of views about her over the last few years.

    Sorry, I didn’t want to destroy another myth that the Standard’s been promoting, that the Herald has been running a long-standing campaign against Helen Clark–but again, it isn’t supported by fact.
21. ak 21

    16 April 2008 at 11:20 am

    Amazing. Never mind the daily torrents of vile filth on the right-wing hate blogs, the son of a Tory president can put our PM’s head on pornography and broadcast it to the world with impunity, and they have the utter gall to accuse Labour of a smear campaign….just flabbergasting in its audacity.
22. Steve Pierson 22

    16 April 2008 at 11:21 am

    Look. I do not deny that we often have posts on Key. the point is this. The attacks are not personal. they are political. They are perfectly legitimate and Key ought to be subject to such scrutiny. Key does not want to be subject to critique. he wants us to sleepwalk to his victory. well, it ain’t going to happen.

    (just for clarity, the graph is an actual count of the posts under the Key catagory. the funny hat and dead seal – well i had to put them somewhere and that seemed like the funniest option).

    OO. you searched Key on the front page. problems with your methodlogy: its only the front page – rate of mention of his name in articles about National and himself might be higher than ones about Labour and Clark – Key also means key.

    And it doesn’t matter if we have a lot of posts on Key, they are political critiques.
23. Matthew Pilott 23

    16 April 2008 at 11:22 am

    Occasional Observer,

    You give a scathing critique of Steve’s graphs, and then do something as ridiculous as assuming the front page is representative of the entire content of the Standard, and two word searches will suffice for analysis. This is a joke for reasons too numerous to list, but since you’ve given Steve a go, I think I’ll take a turn.

    1 – references to “Key”. In the front page there’s a transcript of an interview with him, and a pisstake song about him. Hardly derangement (is that what KDS was? I thought it might have been funny or intelligent, given the propensity of the right to use it. How are those personal attacks on the left going? Are you the pot or the kettle?), given that accounts for about a fifth of your hits.

    I searched for teh word “the” and returned several hundred hits, so The Standard is clearly suffering from The Derangement syndrome. Other reports are coming in that “A Derangement Syndrome” and “Government Derangement Syndrome”. You called this a methodology – I suppose that is technically true…

    2 – Sample size. Steve has used the tags, which cover the entire Standard archive. You’ve used the front page, at a time when John Key himself is the focus of several leading news stories. Homepage lists this as page one of 34, yet you want us to believe that this is more representative than the whole archive. Pop quiz – census or survey – what’s more accurate?

    3 – Critique – a few suspect assumptions because you don’t like the data presented to you, and we’re meant to believe that your two minute job of searching for two words is a better assessment than Steve’s. Unlikely.

    4 – Depth of analysis – you falsely conclude that because there are more references to Key than Clark, the Standard is doing nothing around ‘fixing society’s real problems’. Perhaps you have a Key fixation yourself and manage to miss the other content on this blog, which makes up, oh, 90% of the content or thereabouts. What is with the right’s obsession with the left’s percieved fixation on Key – you guys are missing everything else going on! Key managed to miss all the policy initiatived implemented on April 1, only to have a cry 3 days later that they were bullying him and not doing any real work – I’m sorry but that is a disgrace in anyone’s books.

    A suggestion or two – to critique someone else’s statistics, you’d do well to do better (or even coming close, it would be a start) yourself, or you just embarrass yourself. Maybe look at the category list for a start.

    And if you want to debase the notion that National has no ideas, a bit of evidence wouldn’t go amiss. National seem to be unable to do it, so perhaps you could, if you can stop your “The Standard Derangement Syndrome’ or whatever little name you use…
24. gobsmacked 24

    16 April 2008 at 11:39 am

    For the benefit of those who can’t tell chalk from cheese:

    A personal attack: on somebody’s personal life, family, sexuality, etc. Private matters.

    A political atack: on somebody’s policy positions, judgement, competence. Public interest.

    You will hear the second one every day. Against Key, Clark, Cullen, Peters, whoever. It’s politics.

    You will see the first one EVERY DAY on right-wing blogs. They are directed at Helen Clark. A constant campaign of bigotry, innuendo and abuse.

    “Occasional Observer”, as you are so offended, do you visit the right-wing blogs to condemn such personal attacks? Keep you busy, don’t they?

    And when has John Key been the victim of comparable personal atacks on the Standard? Examples please.

    Because you wouldn’t be a hypocrite feigning outrage, would you?
25. higherstandard 25

    16 April 2008 at 11:42 am

    ak

    You might want to a have a look at the right wing hate blogs today to get a sense that they are not soulless and the absolute evil you make them out to be.

    http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/04/elim_college_mourns.html
    http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/?q=content/just-terrible

    Putting aside the differences in your own and their politics it seems a fairly caring approach in response to the recent tragedy. I’d hope to see a similar response from all sides in parliament today.

    Perhaps they could have t least one day without the petty bickering as a sign of respect.
26. Steve Pierson 26

    16 April 2008 at 11:48 am

    really HS, you’re going to use a tragedy for political gain now?

    Being decent some of the time doesn’t excuse the rest of their behaviour.
27. Daveo 27

    16 April 2008 at 11:50 am

    Because you wouldn’t be a hypocrite feigning outrage, would you?

    I suspect he’s a National staffer feigning intelligence.
28. higherstandard 28

    16 April 2008 at 11:56 am

    SP

    If that’s where you think I’m coming from I feel sorry for you.
    [no i understand where you’re coming from. but a nod to decency from the likes of whaleoil doens’t change who they really are]
29. dave 29

    16 April 2008 at 12:26 pm

    Steve, are you stupid or just ignorant? Point out please where the “we woulkd love to se wages drop” quote is Natinal policy. If it isnt, it cant be a policy on your inaccurate graph, nor can it be a policy U turn.
30. Jay 30

    16 April 2008 at 12:30 pm

    # Trustworthiness: will they do what they promise?

    Cullen before the 2005 Election: I’ll give you all taxcuts between 67c and $10.

    Cullen after the election: Taxcuts, what taxcuts?
31. Tane 31

    16 April 2008 at 12:31 pm

    Y’know Steve, you really got up their noses with that graph. Like my mate Warren says, I guess it is the little things that really matter…
32. dave 32

    16 April 2008 at 12:32 pm

    Intersting that 5% of posts are about Helen Clark and 6% are about fuckwits – shouldnt the categories be merged for accuracy?

    Also we would love to see wages drop was not natinal policy so ie t cvant bea U trun, Steve, are you ingorant of this fact or dont you know the difference between a statement and a policy? A statement that is not party policy can hardly be a policy U turn.
33. Matthew Pilott 33

    16 April 2008 at 12:39 pm

    Hey dave, perhaps the label “policy” was a misnomer, for obvious reasons – National’s lack therof..

    Maybe Steve could relabel it “my position” or “our thinking is…” or “what we’d like to see” or “I think that National would like to..” or any of the other vacuous terms Key uses to avoid making policy statements. Tell you what, you pick one of those, and I’ll personally endorse your choice.

    Higher Standard – no they are not “absolute evil”, but then there is a lot of low content on such sites. An exception does not make the rule, I think Steve understood you to be using a highly emotive example to paint a different picture, which is perhaps a fair enough perception – best policy is to steer clear, I’d suggest.
34. Steve Pierson 34

    16 April 2008 at 12:43 pm

    dave. you would prefer to have them under trustworthiness? Or a seperate catagory “we would love to see wages drop”
35. dave 35

    16 April 2008 at 12:58 pm

    Matthew, the whole bloody graph is a misnomer.
    Steve, just be accurate, other wise you come across as a smartarse, which Im sure you are not.
36. Steve Pierson 36

    16 April 2008 at 1:01 pm

    and you come across as a charmer, dave.

    The point, once more, is that the attacks are not personal. Key just can’t stand criticism.
37. AncientGeek 37

    16 April 2008 at 1:16 pm

    On a complete aside

    Gobsmacked:

    “Occasional Observer’, as you are so offended, do you visit the right-wing blogs to condemn such personal attacks? Keep you busy, don’t they?

    I’ve come to the opinion that Occassional Observer is just a pain. I found this comment when I was googling for a comment I made a couple of months back. It has to be the ultimate in trying to get in a last word, and I really dislike the way he is trying to attribute things to me that I didn’t say.

    Inaccuracies I could live with (Phil keeps pulling me up on mine) – but this type of spin is a quite deliberate distortion.

    Total loser.
38. dave 38

    16 April 2008 at 1:20 pm

    Yes the attacks are not personal, they are political, based on your personal view of the politics of the person. Why dont you write on Keys politics so we know what you are basing the attacks on – or do you think baseless attackes are fine Have you met him? Hes a charmer. Perhaps it is that Key cant stand inaccurate criticism. Not many people like it. People get banned from this site for writing inaccurate criticism

    The Charmer.
39. Steve Pierson 39

    16 April 2008 at 1:23 pm

    dave, it can’t have escaped your attention that we are commenting on Key’s politics nearly every day.
40. dave 40

    16 April 2008 at 1:29 pm

    hey, why dont you have a poltics section on your graph then… colour it all blue and make it 100%

    It`ll be a lot more accurate than the one youve done.
41. Matthew Pilott 41

    16 April 2008 at 1:33 pm

    dave, all politicians are charmers. I once almost thought Hide was reasonable when talking with him.

    As for “Yes the attacks are not personal, they are political, based on your personal view of the politics of the person. Why dont you write on Keys politics so we know what you are basing the attacks on…”

    If you can’t see the inherent paradox in that statement that I think you’re confused beyond help with the distinction between personal and political.

    Anything these guys write will be their personal views, as they don’t represent an organisation of which the opinion expressed could be considered official.

    You’ve actually said “Don’t write about Key’s policies, write about Key’s policies”!

    Until Key fronts up with National Party policy, he can expect to continue to recieve critiques of his ‘thoughts’, ‘positions’ and ‘opinions’ etc.

    Remember he has said that he will release policy on his own timetable, not Labour’s. Hopefully the pressure stays on, and he releases some policy as a…what…diversion??

    He’s whinging about a self-inflicted problem.
42. Nicholas O'Kane 42

    16 April 2008 at 2:00 pm

    I class the post “Poor Poor John” by Jasper on April 12 2008 as personal. Can you explain why it shouldn’t be regarded as personal?

    [lprent: Probably someone has answered this already.
    a. This came from a newspaper article, so was in the public domain already.
    b. Politicians are required to declare assets in public anyway.
    c. I’d say that a politicians financial interests is of considerable relevance to the public voting for them – conflicts of interest]
43. insider 43

    16 April 2008 at 2:07 pm

    How about the ones on his taste in beach house architecture
44. dave 44

    16 April 2008 at 2:08 pm

    Key can have critiques of thoughts and opinions, thats fine. Just don`t, as steve says, call them policy. I`ll shout as this is at least the 4th time: THEY ARE NOT POLICY.

    perhaps you can put atacks on Key under a category of ” future PM. that wil be the most accurate option – and you can put merge the categories of Helen Clark and f**kwit for accuracy.
45. Steve Pierson 45

    16 April 2008 at 2:13 pm

    dave. calm down.

    I’ll get the graph changed to have a seperate catagory of “we would love to see wages drop” if that will bring a smile to your face.
46. Robinsod 46

    16 April 2008 at 2:21 pm

    Oh Dave – you are so shrill. Go on, squeal again (it brightens my day). Squeal, boy, Squeal!
47. Matthew Pilott 47

    16 April 2008 at 2:23 pm

    For the record everyone, dave is souting as loud as he can: NATIONAL HAS NO POLICY.

    Onya. Now try not to call Helen Clark a fuckwit, dave, it’s more than a little childish, which is why you’ve had to repeat that comment three times before someone responded. Lift your game.
48. James Kearney 48

    16 April 2008 at 2:25 pm

    Let him have a cry sod- it’s good for Dave to let it all out every now and then.
49. Matthew Pilott 49

    16 April 2008 at 2:27 pm

    Robinsod, have you been watching Deliverance in a dimly-lit room again?
50. Ruth 50

    16 April 2008 at 2:30 pm

    Why wasn’t the rubbish about Key’s taste in architecture on the graph. Quite a few blogs – including this one- went nutzoid over the appearance of his beach house. Didn’t come up to their high standards.

    That was right out of Stuff White People Like (critiquing architecture section). Not your finest moment.

    [agreed that it wasn’t the best. technically, ‘funny hat’ is a catagory comprising both the funny house and the funny hat. SP]
51. gobsmacked 51

    16 April 2008 at 2:52 pm

    That’s a perfect example of how bizarre this “debate” is.

    John Key’s PR people got a puff-piece in the Herald, featuring a photo of his beach house. The Standard and other blogs then took the piss out of a photo that he WANTED to be published.

    Helen Clark gets photoshopped into porn pictures on right-wing blogs.

    If you can’t see the difference, I can’t help you.
52. Tane 52

    16 April 2008 at 2:57 pm

    I still don’t see the issue with making fun of John’s beach house. It was done with humour, and was hardly an attack on the oppressed and downtrodden.

    Agree it could potentially be considered personal (although he put it in the public arena), but it’s hardly photoshopping children’s heads onto gay porn.
53. gobsmacked 53

    16 April 2008 at 3:13 pm

    Do not – repeat NOT – take the piss out of this photo, published in a newspaer last week. That would be a disgusting personal attack. Do not even think about adding a caption, e.g. “John falls in step behind Helen” or “When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah!”.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/southlandtimes/4474066a6571.html

    (Mea culpa, I just had a little giggle there. Off to confession …)
54. dave 54

    16 April 2008 at 3:52 pm

    I didnt call Helen Clark a fuckwit – I just said that the fuckwit category and the Hele Clark category should be merged thats all. But you could have a sub category for Labour on lawbreaking and avoidance of detection if lawbreaking.
55. Leftie 55

    16 April 2008 at 4:12 pm

    Steve Pierson

    Um, er, keep up the great posts. Thoroughly enjoying them, especially when they attract the attention of the anti Labour brigade, and their weak arguments.
56. Matthew Pilott 56

    16 April 2008 at 4:30 pm

    dave, sorry for putting words in your mouth. Do you think those categories should be merged because you think Helen Clark is a fuckwit, or is there another more rational, not to mention obscure, explanation?
57. insider 57

    16 April 2008 at 5:04 pm

    I have no problem with you mocking John Key’s home or taste. I was just responding to this statement by Steve:

    “the point is this. The attacks are not personal. they are political.”

    Personally I’d mock his comb over haircut – though it does seem to have improved recently.
58. Dan 58

    16 April 2008 at 5:04 pm

    The hypocrisy of the right bleating on about personal attacks is laughable. People from Jenny Shipley down made the anti-Clark barbs an art form. The right wing blogs are the National party personified. If Key was serious about being picked on, then he should call off his acolytes, and find a few sensible writers from the right.
    The interesting proposal by Key was that Labour should spend more time thinking about the economy and living standards. That is a bit rich from someone whose policies are nowhere to be seen, and who when offered the option of debating the substantial issue of overseas sales in parliament, ran a mile.
59. Phil 59

    16 April 2008 at 5:47 pm

    For a bad comb-over, look no further than Jim Anderton…
60. insider 60

    16 April 2008 at 5:51 pm

    Yeah but at his age you wouldn’t expect him to know any better.
61. deemac 61

    16 April 2008 at 7:45 pm

    really pathetic that Key whinged about the comic song thereby extending it’s otherwise very short shelf life and drawing it to the attention of many more people – a really basic political error of judgement
62. dave 62

    16 April 2008 at 8:32 pm

    Ive got no idea whether Helen clark is a fuckwit – she sounds like one at times but not others – just like she sounds like a man at times but not others. But she certainly doesnt sound very Prime Ministerial lately even though she is the PM.

    [lprent: now you’re starting to sound like you’re making the comments to use the word?]
63. Paul 63

    16 April 2008 at 8:42 pm

    How classy was his response to Haggar today in the media “get lost”

    The guy is starting to look very very unstable and it’s only April
64. Matthew Pilott 64

    16 April 2008 at 9:19 pm

    Paul – missed that one, what brought that on?

    dave – give it up; you implied it, so wear it with (misguided) pride, or retract.
65. Pascal's bookie 65

    16 April 2008 at 9:29 pm

    Matthew:
    From Hager’s press release:
    “The National Party has claimed repeatedly that someone hacked into their computers or stole the e-mails from former leader Don Brash’s computer. The Police have concluded decisively that this did not occur.”…

    “I hope that the National Party and commentators who repeated this baseless allegation will acknowledge their error and apologise to me.”

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0804/S00253.htm
66. Dean 66

    16 April 2008 at 10:11 pm

    “How classy was his response to Haggar today in the media “get lost’

    The guy is starting to look very very unstable and it’s only April”

    How about you compare and contrast that to the “by definition I cannot leak” or the whole speeding motorcade incident?

    You’re painting yourself into a very uncomfortable corner by refusing to acknowledge that your preferred PM has done some, shall we say, rather suspect things.
67. r0b 67

    16 April 2008 at 10:27 pm

    Dean – HC has been in the top job for 8.5 years. She’s made a few mistakes, but on the whole she’s done a damn good job, and run a tight successful government. Amongst the community of the sane, even her enemies acknowledge her outstanding competence.

    In contrast Key has been leader of the opposition for a couple of years, and has only recently been placed under any real scrutiny. He’s made a series of gaffes. There is, shall we say, no comparison.
68. Dean 68

    17 April 2008 at 12:10 am

    “Dean – HC has been in the top job for 8.5 years. She’s made a few mistakes, but on the whole she’s done a damn good job, and run a tight successful government. Amongst the community of the sane, even her enemies acknowledge her outstanding competence.

    In contrast Key has been leader of the opposition for a couple of years, and has only recently been placed under any real scrutiny. He’s made a series of gaffes. There is, shall we say, no comparison.”

    Yes, Clark is a formidable leader and politician. No argument from me about that.

    Perhaps then you’d like to discuss her “cannot leak” argument involving the former Police commissioner, or perhaps her numerous out of court defamation settlements. If you’d like, we could even discuss how she let members of the police hang out to dry in the court system?

    Because despite her obvious talent and skill, any leader that lies about such matters does not deserve to be holding her job.
69. r0b 69

    17 April 2008 at 12:17 am

    or perhaps her numerous out of court defamation settlements

    I’m familiar with your other claims Dean, though I don’t agree with your interpretation. But this one is new to me, could you supply references to the numerous out of court defamation settlements so I can check it out please?
70. Dean 70

    17 April 2008 at 12:20 am

    “I’m familiar with your other claims Dean, though I don’t agree with your interpretation. But this one is new to me, could you supply references to the numerous out of court defamation settlements so I can check it out please?”

    Sure thing. I’ll collate them tomorrow; its late and I should get some sort of sleep tonight.

    Perhaps tomorrow you could tell me why you don’t agree with my interpretation of the other things I mentioned? I’d be interested to hear your viewpoint on these.
71. Matthew Pilott 71

    17 April 2008 at 9:07 am

    Pascal – I was actually asking about someone (presumably Key) saying ‘get lost’ as a response… (what Paul mentioned above)
72. r0b 72

    17 April 2008 at 1:16 pm

    Sure thing. I’ll collate them tomorrow;

    Any luck on the “numerous” cases there Dean?

Links to post

1. Hutchison chases the Green Fairy at thestandard.org.nz: posted on 18 April 2008 at 3:00 pm
2. Ralston sez: leave poor Johnny alone at thestandard.org.nz: posted on 20 April 2008 at 5:45 pm

• Comments are now closed

• Log in
• Donate
• Contribute post

• Articles RSS