Monday, September 05, 2005
It's A Bit Blowy Over There . . .
So there's been a hurricane while I've been away. It's pretty awful really, a genuine tragedy, and I'm real sorry for anyone involved in it. I see most people have started aportioning blame to various quarters now, but I really don't know enough about New Orleans or Louisiana or that sort of area to offer a comment, so I should just like to make one criticism of the whole mess.
What I would like to moan about is the coverage of the hurricane on the ITV News Channel. This was about the only means of keeping up with the news that I had while I was away, so I learned what I learned (which wasn't a lot) thanks to them. My problem with them, however, occured last Thursday night, when the crisis was still in its midst, and they had a sort of Newsnight-type debate about the unfolding events. One of the commentators was a man called Geoffrey Robinson. At first, I was astounded that the opinion of Britain's disgraced former Postmaster-General should be considered newsworthy, but it turned out to be somebody else, some bigwig from the Democrat party.
Unimpressive.
Before I go on, let me just say something about politics. I have no affiliation to any party in any country - I view them all as meddlesome gits who make it their business to interfere with my life when I don't need it. I spoiled my ballot at the last general election (there were eight candidates, so I wrote one letter of the word 'bollocks' next to each name) and it's something I'm genuinely very proud of. Therefore, I have no real opinion about whether Democrats are better than Republicans or vice versa. Not only am I not American, I've never even been there, so my opinions on the place should be viewed with all the contempt they deserve.
However, if all Democrat spokespeople behave like this fellow Robinson, then they deserve to be out of power. He was an utter sod - he was blaming Bush for everything, which I suppose is only his job, but he didn't just say it once or twice, he worked it into every sentence. There are sure to be myriads of inquiries into the handling of Katrina, so it seemed, just fifty odd hours after the hurricane had struck, way too early to go bandying around blame. He politicised every single death, and I hated him for it. He actually mentioned that people should vote Democrat in the 2006 elections at one point. How can anybody be thinking about elections when there's bodies floating down the street? And people wonder why turnout keeps going down in elections.
What I would like to moan about is the coverage of the hurricane on the ITV News Channel. This was about the only means of keeping up with the news that I had while I was away, so I learned what I learned (which wasn't a lot) thanks to them. My problem with them, however, occured last Thursday night, when the crisis was still in its midst, and they had a sort of Newsnight-type debate about the unfolding events. One of the commentators was a man called Geoffrey Robinson. At first, I was astounded that the opinion of Britain's disgraced former Postmaster-General should be considered newsworthy, but it turned out to be somebody else, some bigwig from the Democrat party.
Unimpressive.
Before I go on, let me just say something about politics. I have no affiliation to any party in any country - I view them all as meddlesome gits who make it their business to interfere with my life when I don't need it. I spoiled my ballot at the last general election (there were eight candidates, so I wrote one letter of the word 'bollocks' next to each name) and it's something I'm genuinely very proud of. Therefore, I have no real opinion about whether Democrats are better than Republicans or vice versa. Not only am I not American, I've never even been there, so my opinions on the place should be viewed with all the contempt they deserve.
However, if all Democrat spokespeople behave like this fellow Robinson, then they deserve to be out of power. He was an utter sod - he was blaming Bush for everything, which I suppose is only his job, but he didn't just say it once or twice, he worked it into every sentence. There are sure to be myriads of inquiries into the handling of Katrina, so it seemed, just fifty odd hours after the hurricane had struck, way too early to go bandying around blame. He politicised every single death, and I hated him for it. He actually mentioned that people should vote Democrat in the 2006 elections at one point. How can anybody be thinking about elections when there's bodies floating down the street? And people wonder why turnout keeps going down in elections.
Comments:
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Ah yes! Good to have you back. I too have felt pretty sickend by some of the comment by Democrats regarding recent events. Whilst I think criticism of the delay in getting help to people is entirely justified, some of the political point scoring beggars belief. I am currently writing an epic rant about this for my blog so I won't go on too much. For the record my political sympathies are to the left and I am getting heartily sick of the apparently worldwide habit of my fellow lefties of point scoring at every opportunity no matter how weak or inappropriate.
# posted by 
: 8:35 pm
: 8:35 pm
I too spoil my ballot papers. I used to write "spoiled by choice" on them until I realised that some dumb bastard would interpret it as "spoiled FOR choice".
I reckon spoiling your ballot is the only sensible choice in the modern world. I envision a time when politicians have such a miniscule mandate that they have to try and do reasonable things, like tell the truth once in a while.
Maybe not.
A man's got to dream, though.
Maybe not.
A man's got to dream, though.
Hell yes, I'll second that. If I were to ever vote, it'd be for the loony party since, though daft, they are at least different.
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