The Obama of the South Seas

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, April 30th, 2009 - 30 comments
Categories: john key - Tags: ,

The bizarre project to try to portray John Key as the Obama of the South Seas continues. Garth George today writes:

“The new politics is being generated by two relatively young leaders, Prime Minister John Key and President Barack Obama, both of whom overcame less than desirable childhoods to succeed in business.”

“succeed in business”… um, Obama was a leftwing academic, a writer, and a civil rights lawyer, never a business man. He graduated from Harvard in 1991. He then taught constitutional law for twelve years and worked at for a law firm on civil rights cases for 1993 to 2004. He was also in the Illinois State Senate from 1996 until 2004, when he was elected to the US Senate. Sounds more like Helen Clark than John Key, and Clark was no Obama.

Key = Obama? Well, they were both born in the same year. Close enough.

30 comments on “The Obama of the South Seas ”

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  1. Pat 1
    30 April 2009 at 4:07 pm

    um … a law firm is a business. Not sure if Obama was a partner, therefore a part owner.

    Why is a Key classed as a business man? Did he ever own his own business?

    • Eddie 1.1
      30 April 2009 at 4:40 pm

      Obama wasn’t a partner. It was just a part time job anyway.

      I think what George means is that Key was a senior manager in a large finance company. That would fit most people’s idea of working in ‘business’, whereas Obama’s career clearly doesn’t.

      • Kevin Welsh 1.1.1
        30 April 2009 at 7:57 pm

        Working in business – YES

        A Business Man – NOT EVEN CLOSE

        Unless of your course you consider someone who fucks around with a countries economy by speculating on their currency as being a businessman.

  2. Pat 2
    30 April 2009 at 4:28 pm

    “…and Clark was no Obama”

    The key difference:
    Obama: “Yes you can!”
    Clark “No you can’t!”

  3. BLiP 3
    30 April 2009 at 4:37 pm

    Obama: “Yes you can”

    Key: “Ummmm . . . look, sorry, but it seems all the money has just gone . . . yep, all of it, we’ve checked . . . we’re not sure where its gone, but we’re looking for it . . oh, yeah, and Kiwi Saver too, that’s gone . . ah, well, never mind . . I might go on holiday, I think . . . couldn’t give me hand to the Beamer with these suitcases, could you?”

  4. Tigger 4
    30 April 2009 at 4:45 pm

    Garth George’s man-crush on JK is skirmingly embarrassing…

  5. chris 5
    30 April 2009 at 4:46 pm

    I lol’d @ GG

  6. The Baron 6
    30 April 2009 at 4:47 pm

    big yawn – eddie, you’re a broken record. Again and again with the pithy little attempts at character assasination of the man. evidently aiming for a death by a thousand cuts.

    the standard fanboys/girls will all go “yeah I hate him too” but then we knew that already. meanwhile everyone else rolls their eyes and waits for you to say something with just a little substance… just a little analysis, or just a little insight. been waiting a while too.

    speaking of 1000, at least your book – 1001 reasons to hate john key – must be at least half way written by now?

    • Tigger 6.1
      30 April 2009 at 5:02 pm

      Baron – You’re are calling this type of unmasking ‘character assassination’ in an effort to disguise the truth here.

      Key himself started the Obama comparison. And this post just points out the many, many ways that Key is nothing like Obama not to mention the ongoing hypocrisy of Key and others parasitically hitching the Key wagon to the Obama star.

      • The Baron 6.1.1
        30 April 2009 at 5:09 pm

        No Tigger, I’m not trying to mask anything. There is no conspiracy.

        I just really don’t give a fuck about these stupid observations that Eddie keeps making to back up a “JK is stupid/puppet/satan” or whatever new meme has been dreamed up in the think tank.

        Christ Eddie, hows about a little bit more independent thinking, and a little bit less propaganda?

        • r0b 6.1.1.1
          30 April 2009 at 5:12 pm

          You care enough to comment TB. Repeatedly.

        • lprent 6.1.1.2
          30 April 2009 at 6:48 pm

          One of the really fun things about bashing the leaders of the right is it is when you really understand how reactionary and outright conservative their supporters are.

          Poke the leader, watch the scream. Try it again, same reaction…. until they stop reacting. Do with a slight variation, the screams issue again ………

          Reminds me of the Pavlovian techniques that cows were used to demonstrate at waikato uni in my youth. Some psych department should try with wingnuts.

    • BLiP 6.2
      30 April 2009 at 5:13 pm

      I’m shocked, Baron. That is actually a really good idea. There must be a few hundred “Why I Can’t Trust Key” blurts here at The Standard by now; heads down over the next, what, three months; off to the publisher and out for sale around Christmas time. You’d sell ’em by the truck load.

      Its a bit of a pity, really, that the Goober has been taking intensive elocution lessons. I was rather hoping we’d have a bit of a bumbling dubya and the verbal roller coaster rider. Might still happen.

    • Philonz 6.3
      1 May 2009 at 8:17 am

      Character assasination aside TB, surely you must concede that the comparison to Obama is a stupid one. The original article is much closer to propaganda than Eddie’s comment.

  7. Chris G 7
    30 April 2009 at 5:00 pm

    hahah, fascinating comparison. I still have no idea why some idiots still preach it.

    I wonder if Obama ran a “USA Sucks” Campaign? and then reneged on it when he made a shit tourism video in a salmon shirt…

  9. r0b 9
    30 April 2009 at 5:26 pm

    Good for you TB.

    Some perspective on all this eh. We on the left have just seen a competent, compassionate and excellent (not perfect but I would argue excellent) leader and government brought down by a campaign of 1000 little lies and tawdry innuendoes. Now your blue team is sitting in the big seat. You can hardly be surprised if the political left gets stuck in to the task of pointing out the blue team’s inadequacies.

  10. mickysavage 10
    30 April 2009 at 5:45 pm

    Michael Cullen had a wonderful line about Key comparing himself to Obama. He said,

    “Barack Obama … shares other similarities with him [Key]. As, indeed, a reader of the New Zealand Herald pointed out, “They are scientifically similar in that they are both male bipedal mammals with an identical number of arms, legs and internal organs.’ The difference, of course, is that Mr Obama stands for change you can believe in.”

    I will miss Cullen.

    • ripp0 10.1
      30 April 2009 at 5:50 pm

      Nice one .. 🙂

    • rainman 10.2
      30 April 2009 at 8:12 pm

      >I will miss Cullen.

      Yep, me too. Between him and Winston the Hansard was worth reading…

      And I would say Garth George is a muppet, expect that would be unkind to muppets.

  11. gobsmacked 11
    30 April 2009 at 5:48 pm

    They both like to appear before the cameras, showing off their new pets.

    Bo is still frisky, and a bit of a handful. But Pita is house-trained.

  12. Irascible 12
    1 May 2009 at 12:48 am

    Garth George’s article is a classic demonstration of the hypocrisy and shallow thinking that is the NZ Herald and the columnist himself. Gorge sees Key as inclusive because he has taken on three partners – ACT, Maori, Dunne and taken on the concubinage of the Greens to bolster up his government while Helen was an autocratic dictator because she succeeded in creating three successive Labour led Governments made up of Labour, NZ Future, Progressives, Peter Dunne and a working alliance with The Greens.
    Gorge’s analysis and world allows him to remain hypocritically consistent without seeing the illogicality of his own arguments. He failed to see Key putting on the emperor’s clothes in his campaign to win the election.
    Watch for his argument that Auckland needs the beneficence of John Banks and the Business round-table as the mayor and controllers of the black hole that is Auckland.

  13. Tom Semmens 13
    1 May 2009 at 11:00 am

    Irascible, I wouldn’t over analyse it. People like Garth George will never accept that anyone other than white male farmers or businessmen (peferably rich ones) have a legitimate role in governing the country. Garth George thinks John Key is inclusive because John Key is a white male, just like Garth.

  14. Irascible 14
    4 May 2009 at 12:24 am

    Is Garth Gorge a real white male? After years as a typewriter interviewing hack at the Herald I thought he was a little printer’s devil – the gray man from under the press.