Chris Trotter in the Sunday Star Times, July 20 2008.
You might already have seen this. You might not have. Worth a read. Classic Trotter-waving – the sort the left are wary of these days. To the point of forgetting how to do it. And to the extent that one Nat blog called it ‘hate speak.’
We might call them so, but don’t wasps bite for lack of pricks?
The response has been largely predictably ad hominem – who signs Chris Trotter’s pay-cheques? He’s in the pay of… Or he’s simply a fuckwit, and so on.
What interests me is the confusion the piece has elicited between who the Nats are and the company they are said to keep. That Chris makes the distinction is I think the piece’s singular distinction. I live in John Key’s electorate. And he lives in Remuera. In better company, indeed.
Until the Trotter op-ed piece came along, we had to be getting on with the “bland leading the bland.” A state of affairs which could only have ended with a ‘bland-slide.’
Who, to consider the man is John Key? What do his upper-palatal speech habits, constricted, tell us about him? like the boy we used to feel sorry for at playcentre? And Bill English, whose transcripts show he barely speaks it. And Lockwood – I used to know his son – Lockjaw? Well, tongues are wagging but jaws are barely moving.
There’s a faint tickle on the line, which is terrifying and comical when one knows one is at sea. With heavy weather or extreme events certainly approaching. Like finding ocean diminished to rockpool. And, canst thou draw out a shrimp with an hook?
– John Key (never has it seemed so appropriate to doctor an image with Gimp)
