Damning Don
Okay, so I take it back. The day after I mentioned that some have dubbed Wellington’s morning paper The Don Post, its political editor Tracy Watkins has been scathing of Don Brash. She writes:
He has been bumbling and forgetful; irritable and incredulous when challenged over his poor grasp of detail of party policy; evasive in the face of difficult questions, and either ruthless enough in his ambition for power to be somewhat undiscerning about some of those offering him a leg-up - or somewhat naive…
His vagueness about how much he knew about four meetings with the fundamentalist sect - an extraordinary level of access to an opposition leader by a group whose membership numbers only 2000 and who don’t even vote - leaves lingering questions.
The more lasting damage may have been done, however, by Dr Brash’s enthusiastic endorsement of the Exclusive Brethren campaign to topple Labour, a campaign from which he has not distanced himself from.
The front-page pictures of Brethren members, accompanied by the headlines, We are doing God’s Work, will rest uneasily with those mainstream New Zealanders National purports to represent.
As Watkins points out, we’ll only know the real impact of the Brash Brethren dishonesty when a slew of polls come out Wednesday through Friday. There could be as many as five polls in that period - NBR, Herald, Fairfax, TV1 and TV3 - which may give us enough information to call the election one way or the other. However, given the volatility over the past few weeks, I wouldn’t count on it.
September 12th, 2005 at 9:27 am
I predict this is one of many to come. Nothing a journalist likes less than having her/his professional pride wounded by insincerity/incompetence/downright lying on the part of an interviewee s/he has roundly profiled as the second coming.
After all, when someone lies to you, and doesn’t put much effort into cobbling together a story, there’s a distinct air of distain for the intelligence of the audience (”yep, they’ll be too thick to work this one out in a hurry”)
Then of course one has to add arrogance to the dishonesty, which begins to sound like major personality problems!
Not a slip Dr Brash wants to be showing when the media of the nation are waiting with bated breath for his next exhalation………