tis the season

Written By: - Date published: 5:47 pm, July 10th, 2008 - 14 comments
Categories: john key, public services - Tags:

I am beginning to think John Key’s attempt to turn statements that involve him into ‘personal attacks’ might be catching on. Check out this story, on the TVNZ website, but sourced to Newstalk ZB, that accuses Trevor Mallard of ‘lashing out’ at Cameron Bagrie over his loose with the truth report on public services. Now Trevor can be prone to be a bit of hyperbole from time to time, but since when did pointing out factual weaknesses in a report amount to ‘lashing out’?

14 comments on “tis the season ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Inventory2 1
    10 July 2008 at 6:51 pm

    Maybe Trevor needs some help from Crosby/Textor like Helen and Shane seem to have received!!

    http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2008/07/crosbytextor-from-labour.html

  2. Monty 2
    10 July 2008 at 7:53 pm

    Do you guys not believe that Helen who used to sanction nasty and vile put-downs and lies, is now the one using every opportunity to do the job her self. AS Michael Bassett wrote

    ” In 1990 at the very last Labour caucus that I attended, when everyone was moping over our well-deserved trouncing, Helen Clark, then Deputy Leader, told the assembled Labour MPs something that I wrote down carefully at the time. She said she would be – and I quote from my caucus notes – “as vicious, nasty and opportunist as anyone’ in the fight to return Labour to the Treasury benches. Those remarks were a forewarning. The only religious belief most modern Labourites seem to hold is their divine right to govern, to impose their views on others”

    Seems like she has not changed one little bit. The only change will be that this time she will not return. No Longer will the public need to put up with her vicious nasty and opportunist attacks.

  3. Blar 3
    10 July 2008 at 8:33 pm

    You’ve managed to simultaneously read too much and too little in to this story.

    Lashed out is just journalese a language of tired clichés with no relation to the way people actually speak. Try searching any news site for the phrase “lashed out” and you will find hundreds of examples of the phrase being used – usually to describe a fairly innocuous situation.

    the-latest.com has a fairly exhaustive list of journalese phrases or words here: http://www.the-latest.com/is-journalese-gobbledegook

    PS: The aggressive tone of Mallard’s presser seems to suggest more flailing than lashing.

  4. Blar 4
    10 July 2008 at 8:39 pm

    Er, I have just followed my suggestion and if you search for lashed out on either TVNZ or the Herald’s website one of the first results will be a story about Tony Veitch “lashing out” at his former partner. But really, ‘lashed out’ is still meaningless journalese.

  5. Lew 5
    10 July 2008 at 8:59 pm

    Blar: Journalese isn’t meaningless – far from it; it frames the way actions are viewed and provides vocabulary to people to express their thoughts about them.

    Saying journalese doesn’t drive public discourse is like saying Hollywood doesn’t drive fashion, TV doesn’t drive slang, or pop music doesn’t drive hairstyles. It’s simply denial of reality.

    You’re right in that it shouldn’t necessarily be read too literally, though – Adlai Stevenson once said a newspaper editor was someone who separated wheat from chaff, only to print the chaff – and this is largely so.

    L

  6. Monty 6
    10 July 2008 at 9:26 pm

    Personal Attacks?? – what sluth in the Labour Party (shane Jones) took the story to the Truth about Derek Fox. A day is not going by when someone from the Labour Party is not involved in a personal attack. Of course the difference now is that each personal attack is blowing right back in the face of Labour. Each “hit” turns into an own goal.

    You guys pretend to be all innocent – but the reality is the public knows it is Labour getting vile and dirty with personal attacks. You try to spin it the other way – but that ain’t working.

    So Today Labour were exposed as being behind personal attacks on Derek Fox (advance copies of “The Truth”) – you may try and deny – but Labour has now really pissed off the Maori Party and as a result co-leader Tariana Turia says Labour has all but blown its chances of a coalition deal at the next election.

    so tell me – yuo are in the low thirties high 20s. You are 20 + points behind national. You probably have the Greens and Anderton (but I understand he is going to retire rather than 9 years in opposition) and defeat is all but now guaranteed.

    Have you got the message yet? You are toast. You cannot possibly win. No one is saying you can win (except Clark who is in denial and getting more unstable each day). NZ has had enough of Labour. My mission to to do what I can to ensure you have the worst election defeat ever.

  7. outofbed 7
    10 July 2008 at 9:42 pm

    Monty, your mission, should you choose to accept it is to to do what you can to ensure that labour has the worst election defeat ever.

    “ok I accept I’ll do another moronic post on the Standard that will show em”

  8. Lew 8
    10 July 2008 at 9:42 pm

    Monty: I can’t quite figure out who the `you’ in your post is.

    It ain’t me, babe.

    L

  9. Monty 9
    10 July 2008 at 10:05 pm

    Lew – it is the royal “you”

    I mean all leftards – should I be more specific next time.

    By the way I would love to know what leftards actually believe Labour could win the election this year – especially since the maori party have basically declared they will not support labour.

  10. Chlorpromazine 10
    10 July 2008 at 10:12 pm

    I can’t understand why Helen CLark didn’t just blame John Key for the Derek fox leak. It would make for some consistency at least.

  11. Steve Pierson 11
    10 July 2008 at 10:16 pm

    I haven’t seen anything about who revealed that Derek Fox is a wife-beater but I hardly think revealing that is a bad thing.

  12. Blar 12
    11 July 2008 at 7:58 am

    Steve, I think revealing something to the Truth is inherently bad.

  13. Inventory2 13
    11 July 2008 at 8:14 am

    Steve – then you didn’t watch 3News last night did you? It has been confirmed that the leak came from Shane Jones’s office, but of course he and his leader had nothing to do with it!

  14. Phil 14
    11 July 2008 at 9:25 am

    “but of course he and his leader had nothing to do with it!”

    email that off to Tui – they can put it right next to the Tony Veitch billboard

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.