Pig or prophet?
Now wait up - before you get stuck into Hamish 'women should not be politicians' Jones, consider this: Is Hamish a foul-mouthed, misogynistic aberration, or is he just the logical successor to the Liberal Party's No. 1 NSW Senator and John Howard's best mate, Bill 'deliberately barren women should not be PM' Heffernan?Perhaps Hamish was merely spewing out what he assumed senior Liberal figures wanted to hear? Or indeed, the Liberal charmers closer to his own generation, e.g. Alex Hawke?
Even though he was clearly a dead candidate - i.e. running dead in a safe Labor seat against star recruit Bill Shorten - he still had long-term political amibitions for the party, and was apparently a darling of the Victorian Costello-Kroger faction.
On the topic of being punished for free speech, future candidates getting caught out for stuff they blog, etc: There *might* have been a Get Out of Jail card for Jones if he'd shown genuine remorse after his exposure and claimed to longer believe what he wrote, perhaps in a fit of pique. Yesterday's effort, in which not only did he proudly defend what he wrote but added the 'women should not be politicians' pearler, ripped up that card and set it alight for good measure.
So yeah, bloggers shouldn't necessarily be punished for the sins of their blog past - lord knows I'd probably be in trouble if I ever decided to run for public office, as I'm sure many of my linked blog buddies would be - but that is irrelevant to Jones' situation.
Misogynist? Yup. Extremist? Surely. More honest representation and expression of popular thought within the ranks of senior Liberal men? Quite likely.
Labels: 2007 federal election, Hamish Jones, Liberal Party
posted by Sam @ Wednesday, August 15, 2007
15 Comments:
I think AAP pulled this story: it looks to have been a fake. There's some discussion about it on LP, and Andrew Landeryou has done some relevant posts.
You should probably have held back on this post, since it looks like you've become complicit in a successful Labor smear campaign.
I'd hardly take Andrew Landeryou seriously as a source of information - particularly where the Labor Party is involved.
Yes, well firstly, Hamish is in the Victorian Libs, and therefore a political opponent of Landeryou. Secondly, the story first appeared in Yahoo news (who seem to have a relationship with AAP) but it has since been withdrawn from their website (at least, after my own searches, that's what I conclude - happy to be proved wrong). So they appear to believe it is a fake.
Still up on the Hun site, however (which is where I'm sourcing it from).
Do you think it's such a big leap for a bloke who refers to women as 'bitches' so easily to also conclude that women shouldn't be politicians, Tim?
You trust the Hun?
And I do think that there is a clear difference between what Hamish actually said, and what the news story quotes him as saying. Come on, Sam! We've all used strong language in the heat of the moment.
The AAP appear to have pulled the story. Now why would they do that?
I don't necessarily trust the Hun, but it seems to me if the source of the story were so ambiguous even they would take it down, to avoid a possible libel suit if nothing else.
But hey - the latest tactics of Liberals caught out (Costello, Tuckey etc) at the moment is to out-and-out lie, so if Hamish wishes to again follow the lead of his elder peers...
It's their choice. News Limited have run with inaccurate stories before, a recent example being a story about the National Australia Bank having a call centre in India.
Yup, fully aware of that. In fact, you'll know I'm a regular critic of the accuracy and integrity of News Ltd's newspapers.
Nevertheless, I don't believe AAP withdrawing the story and Andrew Landeryou are both enough of themselves to prove Jones didn't say that women shouldn't be politicians.
Clearly you have a difference of opinion, and power to you. And if you really need to have the last word here, as your four comments on this post would imply, go right on ahead. It's still not going to change my mind.
I just think that restraint should be exercised about such stories, since if it is untrue (and there is at the very least doubt about it), it could seriously impact on Hamish's future career.
So what? He didn't use restraint when posting about her being a bitch, did he? Why should anyone give him the benefit of the doubt in a sourced news story? Sams blogging about current news events - this is one. Theres no reason that i can see for him to restrain what he has to say on something that has been cited in many news sources.
The story that News Limited ran with - if it is untrue - is slander. What Hamish said on his website is not slander.
But I think Sam's a little tired about this, as his comments about me wanting to have the last word would indicate, so I will quit the floor.
Libel, actually. Slander = spoken word defamation, libel = written.
And on that topic, your source isn't infamously known as 'Andrew Slanderyou' for nothing.
Frankly Tim, even if Jones came out now and categorically denied he ever said that women shouldn't be MPs, I just wouldn't believe him and would think he were covering his tracks, Costello style. The stuff on his blog site that he published - and this has been definitely proved - leads me to believe it's not a big leap for him to have views like those with which he's accredited.
Unlike you, I'm not concerned about his future career being jeopardised, at least not in politics. There are already enough sexist, misogynistic MPs, state and federally. We don't need another one.
I've known Hamish for years and can assure you he would never say women should not be politicians. He's the least sexist bloke I know. I laugh to think anyone believed such bullshit. I mean reeeeeeeaaaallllyyyy.
ohhh, well if some random person on the internet says he wouldn't say it, then i should DEFINITELY believe them. That's just as sensible as believing various news sources.
I dunno rachy. If the 'least sexist bloke' you know so freely uses words like 'bitch' and 'c%&t' perjoratively, you might wanna think about expanding your network.
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