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PADDY MCGUINNESS
Padraic Pearse McGuinness, whose funeral will be held today in Sydney, was an advice- and absinthe-dispensing friend of this site, which never reduced my anxiety when in his company. I was always worried I’d bore him. Paddy had a low tolerance for dullness.
For that reason, he’d probably get a kick out of Paul Keating’s insane rage (if not the content of Keating’s piece, which is dull + pompous x psychologically wretched). Keating has probably crossed a line here, which would matter if he mattered. As it stands, even his closest supporters must by now be wishing he’d just shut up.
Ah, that was the smart move, Keating, me boy! Wait ‘til Paddy’s dead – give him a week, just to be sure – then throw your gauntlet down on the lid of his coffin. Sure, an’ the bards’ll be strummin’ their harps and singin’ of how ye covered yersel’ with . . .well, not glory, exactly, but with another commodity that will serve, in its own way, to distinguish ye in a crowd.
As it stands, even his closest supporters must by now be wishing he’d just shut up.
Au contraire Tim. One Barney Fife popped up on Andy Bolt’s site last night to cheer on Keating.
You see, these are not rational people. They are not moral. They hate, and I mean hate, everything and everyone who stands in their path.
Keating’s gutless diatribe would appeal to them, just as his gutless, bullying, first rate prick demeanor has always appealed to them.
Poor Pauly. He’s grieving the loss of “father”, his preferred form of address for Suharto whose loss must have deranged his mind - even further.
Seething hatred for anyone or anything that doesn’t agree with his own worldview multiplied by a growing awareness of self-irrelevance must be a terrible thing to bear. Just go away, Paul.
Business journalist Michael Short has criticised Keating today. Being The Melbourne Age, however, the pro-Keating encomiums and qualifications are front-loaded into the article: Keating [deserves] “massive credit for…courage, agility and wisdom”; “intellectual and emotional strength”; “a refined thinker”; “a leader with passion”; “one of the most magnificent legacies in Australian political history”; [his record] “superior to that of John Howard and Peter Costello”, who (unlike Keating) were not “architects of noble change”.
So much for the opening four pars. There follows a reasonably plain-speaking but perfunctory few sentences criticising Keating for his latest display of psychosis - which episode he properly describes as “cowardly”. Short then rounds off what, to him, is obviously a painful journalistic mission - criticising a Labor leader - with extra (and vomit-inducing) tributes to his hero, Keating: “intellectually elegant”; “much to be proud of”; “one of Australia’s finest thinkers”.
Codswallop.
Keating this week tugged the forelock at the funeral of Suharto - the man he once called “father” - overseer of the genocide in East Timor (more than 100,000 killed) and billionaire treasury thief. The honour guard at this blood-splattered criminal’s obsequies included members of the notorious Kopassus special forces.
Says a lot about Keating’s moral judgement.
#9: “massive credit for…courage, agility and wisdom”;
Strange triumvirate of virtues, there: “courage, agility and wisdom”. It’s that middle one that seems to be throwing me: not because it doesn’t apply (I suspect it’s the only one that does); but it just kind of clangs in an unharmonious manner with the other two. I could see the association if we were talking about a tightrope walker of extraordinary experience and skill who has, nonetheless, double-checked the strength and tautness of the net. Or about a clown who wears asbestos pants during the “burning house” routine. But isn’t Keating simply an ex-Prime Minister and current over-the-hill windbag?
I am with everyone on this. Paul went over and gave Suhartos dick on last suck for old time’s sake and here he is sinking the boot into the still warm body of someone who was from all accounts a decent man. Something definitely wrong with this picture.
Thank god this bloke isn’t pm anymore and spends his time polishing his antique clocks…...I feel sorry for those clocks right now.
Keating had another ‘father’ before Suharto.
Jack Lang former Premier of NSW and one of the ALP’s great haters.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 01 31 at 04:13 PM • permalinkI look forward to reading Paul Keating’s obituary . . . .
Posted by Young and Free on 2008 01 31 at 04:32 PM • permalinkThe Australian Financial Review showed poor judgment in publishing Keating’s spray. Why did they do it? Is the editor a friend of Keating? We can only speculate.
It gives the impression that any time Keating has something to say, he has a standing offer of having his own space on the opinion pages.
For a newspaper to lay the boot into a dead journalist like that is just wrong.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 01 31 at 04:47 PM • permalinkAs it stands, even his closest supporters must by now be wishing he’d just shut up.
I have to agree with murph on this one. The most moonbatty woman in my office (the one everyone has to make allowances for because the poor petal’s “suffering from stress” - ie, a malingerer) was loudly telling a colleague how she thought Keating was wonderful because PP McGuinness was a “vile human being”.
The colleague, who is a lefty herself, commented that Keating had no right to judge people when he was using taxpayers’ money to go to Suharto’s funeral. Moonbatty’s reply was “well, they were good friends”. It seems that Keating can do no wrong in her eyes. I reckon that if Keating robbed a bank, she’d say it was a good thing because banks make too much profit.
#14 - The Australian Financial Review showed poor judgment in publishing Keating’s spray.
It’s Fairfax - only to be expected.
As I said at bolta, if there is one thing I looked forward to with relish over the years it was Paddy McGuiness’s columns in The Australian. The man was a one of the finest journalist/economists in Australia and one who towered over all others.
I had just finished reading Paris, May 1968, his wonderfully evocative account of his adventures in Paris as a young lefty, in Quadrant, when I learned he had died.
Paul Keating, on the hand, is a twice-divorced ex-Prime Minister who is an intellectual gnat by comparison.
When you heap unjustified and near-libelous calumny on the recently-deceased as Keating has done you show to everyone you have no decency and no breeding.
Posted by walterplinge on 2008 01 31 at 05:18 PM • permalinkSaid my bit in another thread about Paul Keating the troll.
But it is interesting to reflect on how poorly some of our former primer ministers have behaved in retirement, either forced or otherwise.
Those before Whitlam were quietly dignified. Whitlam has been dignified but not quiet, largely due to his continuing inability to accept the fact the Australian public did not want him - twice.
Fraser lost his dignity with his trousers in Memphis in 1986. He has since slid into very public senility, presenting us with the spectacle of the man who told Australians “life was not meant to be easy” attacking a Liberal government who proved him wrong. He is a monumental hyprocrite.
Hawke never had a hope of being dignified because he is a yob. He reinforced his lack of dignity when he and his second wife, Blanche, were photographed in white bath robes for a women’s magazine. It was said, with some justification, you could buy advertising space on his back. An appalling loud man by any measure especially after what he did to Hazel.
Keating is another Labor cad - where do they find them? He treated his wife very badly and now as his sanity declines, he spends all his time trying to get into the news with another vitriolic attack of enemies real and imagined.
And what about Howard? Too soon to tell but I have a feeling we have got back to quiet dignity. It was how he behaved in public life and I somehow don’t see that changing in retirement.
What a vile grub Keating is.
“..Mr Keating, who was prime minster from 1991 to 1996, defended his attack on McGuinness, who died aged 69 on Saturday after a struggle with cancer, as something that was a long time coming..”Because he knew the cancer stricken McGuinness would wipe his clock if hed dared tospray his blie why the man was still alive. The thought of Paul “Howard beat me!me!you will suffer!!! you will all suffer!!!!!” Keating biting his toungue out of modesty or decorum is laughable.
Paul, “Suck my nuts”.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 01 31 at 06:08 PM • permalinkKeating is beyond a joke.
He is not even a man - but a snivelling, bitter, twisted, and I would say, unhinged individual that has a diagnosable mental problem.He suffers from potty mouth, sewer mind, extreme egomania and relevency deficiency syndrome and is all together a most unpleasant and despicable package.
What is it about the common, gutter version of Labor operatives?
Today it’s Keating pissing on the memory of Paddy McGinness, last July it was Mike Carlton who claimed the only reason he would go to Stan Zemaneck’s funeral was to make sure he was dead. Nice.
What is it about the rabid Left that so distorts their twisted psyches into this mindless bitterness and hatred?
It’s a sickness and is quite endemic among the Left. They are indeed a sorry and indeed, pathetic lot.
On the other hand, Bill Hayden wrote an affectionate piece for The Australian on Monday eulogising Paddy - incredibly Paddy and Hayden were good friends from the days when Paddy worked for him.
Then again, Hayden is a rarity in the Labor Party. A man of grace, common-sence, class, and not blinded by the dogma that if you aren’t my friend, then you must be my enemy, and I must do all in my power to destroy you.
This is the creepy mind-set of Keating and Carlton and countless others of the loony Left.
People like Keating reinforce one’s perception that the loony Left really are a graceless bunch of mentally deficient, bottom-feeding morons.
#18 The amusing part is the fact that Keating didn’t raise any facts
nope. Nothing to support either “liar” or “fraud.” If you’re going to make those claims in a national paper, at least explain yourself.
Otherwise they’re just empty assertions.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 01 31 at 08:34 PM • permalink#22 Bonmot
Bill Hayden, Peter Walsh, Barry Cohen, Beazleys Snr & Jr, Fred Daly, Mick Young, Simon Crean and Tony Kelly (current NSW).
Just a short off the top of my head list of utterly decent Labor blokes whose behaviour during and after public life provides such a stark contrast with Keating.
The rancid pus that oozes from him must not be allowed to detract from the ideals held and efforts made by those listed above.
He stands infested, forever wounded and alone.
#26 Pickles
Good list - I only mentioned Hayden because he wrote the obit in the Oz. Certainly the list is pretty thin - not many, and I think you caught them all.
Barry Unsworth (Barry Cardigan), ex-Premier of NSW, these days seems pretty decent. Entitled to all the trappings of being an ex, he chooses to catch the bus instead of taking the limo he is entitled to.
He says he does this to take the burden off the taxpayer. “I’ve had my turn” is his reasoning.
I guess that makes him the rarest bird of the lot.
The ex-pollie who isn’t grasping with both hands every stinking entitlement they shower themselves with.“Hawke never had a hope of being dignified because he is a yob.”
Hawke is a class traitor much in the same vein as Viscount Stansgate, AKA Tony Benn. Hawke has impeccable middle-class credentials: breeding and education, but deliberately assumed the persona and accent of an Australian yob so he would be more acceptable to the great unwashed.
As for Keating - assume best Terry-Thomas accent, “The man’s a shower, a positive shower. A bounder. A cad. A twister…”
Posted by walterplinge on 2008 01 31 at 10:54 PM • permalinkTo sum Keating up, just compare his achievements to Kim Beazley’s or Bill Hayden. A British newspaper once had a headline; “The Lizard of Oz.” It happened when he broke protocol and put his arm on the Queen’s back, guiding her in a patronising way. What an embarrassing representative for Australia.
Has Keating ever had a career path or gainful employment, like. . . . P. P. McGuiness.The Keating fans I know rave about the abuse he piled onto those with whom he disagreed. They even have their favourite lines. As far as I can tell the strategy was intended to scupper the atmosphere for debate.
Keating fans are notorious for wanting to close down discussion once they have made up their own minds.
I really cannot see why people think him intellectually gifted; Can anybody think of any great insights of his?
Compare the sniggered repetitions of Keatingisms - to the way we quote Churchill.
Posted by Toiling Mass on 2008 02 01 at 02:26 AM • permalink#38 they reprinted an old Paddy column as a response? LOL that’s beautiful!
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 01 at 05:02 AM • permalinkO/T but this is how you mock someone, There is a proper video of it but I couldnt find it
It even had some of Browns supporters chuckling away.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 02 01 at 05:20 AM • permalinkPaddy has the last word on the vitriol of Paul Keating from April 15, 1989.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 01 at 05:43 AM • permalink38 entropy missed you were first.
By the way did you see Frank Devine ?Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 01 at 06:01 AM • permalink#38 Entropy and #43 Stack,
brilliant pair of columns! Fantastic read. I don’t often go through the papers online, so I really appreciate you linking to those columns.
I particularly adore this line from the 1989 column,
“The Kss will have to have it’s own club tie. This is, of course, to be worn when meeting behind closed doors in the gentlemen’s clubs, out of the sight of threatening women.”
Do any of you know of opinions he had of Gillard? If he had one in writing, I would dearly love to read it.
#13 Young and Free. Which version. The Age, the SMH or the real world. He might out live many of us. Pity though because if he was a liberal there are many aspects of his make up that impress me. But unfortunately he possesses the worst of class envy and the tall poppy programmed into him. I therefore hope he lives until he’s 100 and continues to hate life exponentially. May Mark Latham be a pall bearer and pigs bark him to his grave.
46 Google shows clues: For example:
Keating’s got it wrong: GillardIn an interview on ABC television last night, Mr Keating criticised Ms Gillard’s understanding of industrial relations principles such as enterprise bargaining established under the Labor government in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Asked how he thought Ms Gillard had performed, he said: “Not very well. Not very well.”Labor lovefest! Who’s $orry now?
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 01 at 08:07 AM • permalinkWho let the italics out? Did not his Timship say watch the tags? Oh! Was that the bold?
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 01 at 08:10 AM • permalinkIs Shiraz a black grape? Or is that what Rudd wants to say $orry about.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 01 at 08:54 AM • permalinkKeating’s problem is democracy.
His friend and role model Suharto had no need for it, so why should Paul? Democracy is an insistent problem that stands in the way of the Perfect Leader and his adoring people.
Hey! Back up! snap * snap * No press! snap* snap* All of you, back behind the perimeter, now!
A superb slide-show of Paddy pictures, including from yesterday’s funeral, courtesy of The Australian:
Vale Padraic “Paddy” McGuinness 1938-2008.
Do check it out.
Also, see: Hayden laments attack on Paddy:
PAUL Keating’s vitriolic attack on Paddy McGuinness, days after the distinguished journalist’s death, has diminished the former prime minister “enormously” in the eyes of fellow Labor icon Bill Hayden.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian following McGuinness’s funeral at Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery yesterday, the former governor-general and treasurer in the Whitlam government said Mr Keating’s comments were “sad in the circumstances” and “even sadder for Keating”.
[...]
“He’s diminished himself enormously,” Mr Hayden said of Mr Keating. “The way he’s staggered around the gloomy ramparts of memory, like a bitter old man, invoking memories of what should have been and blaming all sorts of spectral problems, makes me wonder whether the gods are readying him for destruction.”
[...]
Journalist and editor Frank Devine broke down repeatedly as he recalled McGuinness as an “illuminator”, rather than the “contrarian” he was frequently called.
Noting that McGuinness “never succumbed to malice or hatred”, Devine said of Mr Keating for his diatribe and former NSW premier Bob Carr for a less vitriolic spray in The Australian: “They had much less success in their chosen professions than Paddy had in his.”
Hear hear, Mr Devine.
Noting that McGuinness “never succumbed to malice or hatred”, Devine said of Mr Keating for his diatribe and former NSW premier Bob Carr for a less vitriolic spray in The Australian: “They had much less success in their chosen professions than Paddy had in his.”
Ten years as premier and Bob Carr’s only achievement was staying in power for the ten years. I believe he’s running the Canton Province Rail Authority these days.
jlc
it is important to emphasize that one should not use the word “contumely” twice on the same page.
I’ll add to that. One should not just randomly substitute perfectly suitable words (e.g., “criticism”, “abuse”) with obscure fancy words that you found using a thesaurus (“vituperation”, “contumely”).
As a rule of thumb, if you’ve never heard the word before, chances are that JLC’s Rule should be followed.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 02 at 04:42 AM • permalink
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