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Last updated on July 26th, 2017 at 12:23 pm
Comparing the cases of John Brogden and Bob Hawke, SMH columnist Alan Ramsey attacks journalists who protect political allies:
Why is Brogden pilloried and his career destroyed amid media frenzy over “sexist” and “racist” behaviour in August 2005, yet Hawke’s outrageous “sexist” and “racist” ridicule of the prime minister of the world’s most populous democracy attracts neither media lynch mob nor any hint of political “disgrace” in July 1981?
Simple. Ignorant, racist indifference and a very protective press corps, is why … although the function was taped and reporters were present, the Hawke “joke” never made it into the press. Not a word.
Agreed; the double standards evident here are terrible. Meanwhile, recent Ramsey columns have been very protective towards Ramsey’s political allies Robin Gollan and Gough Whitlam. Not a word, eh, Al?
- Remember when Whitlam allegedly called over a woman demonstrating against the Australian recongition of the soviet incorporation of the Baltic States and told her she was a “fascist bitch”? The story is preserved for posterity in an admiring book “The Wit of Whitlam.”
I was present when Whitlam was introduced to a man with an Arab wife at the university of Western Australia in 1974. Whitlam’s comment to him: “I’ve never fucked an Arab, what are they like?”
Posted by Susan Norton on 09/03 at 02:52 PM • permalink
- Famously, Susan, Gough also said something to the effect (in relation to Vietnamese boat people) that he didn’t want all these Vietnamese Balts coming over here.
I would say that times have changed, and that what was acceptable in 1981 or earlier would not be acceptable now.
I think that has to be taken into account.
We do expect our politicians to be a tedious shade of grey these days.
Posted by Darlene Taylor on 09/03 at 06:27 PM • permalink
- Wasn’t Ramsey part of the press corps in 1981? Can I take it this are his reasons for not having published anything himself?
Hmm – guess not. According to this bio he was press secretary and speechwriter to Federal Labor leader, Bill Hayden during these years.
- Darlene, it is quoted in Clyde Cameron’s memoirs, “China, Communism and Coca-Cola” (Stupid title for a book by a nasty, Mao-worshipping old git). I’m sorry I mistyped the date of the “Arab” incident recounted above. It was 1994 (I think)Posted by Susan Norton on 09/03 at 11:43 PM • permalink
- This isn’t the same as what Brogden did, simply because Indira Gandhi deserved to have a bit of shit flung in her direction. This reminds me of comments that Richard Nixon was recently revealed to have made about Indira, that she was a “bitch” and an “old witch”. Some naive Indians may be outraged but that doesn’t change the fact that Indira Gandhi was by all reliable accounts, a bitch.
- The difference? Duh, Alan, it’s 24 years.Posted by reverse_swing on 09/04 at 03:29 AM • permalink
- This is old News, as it was covered in The Australian last Tuesday
Peter Coleman also discussed it.
Of course, Alan’s point was not a moral one, it was that Brogden was ‘spineless’ for not trying to bluff it out (like the ‘courageous’ politicians that Mr Ramsey so admires ie Whitlam, hawke et al.). Oh, and an excuse to have a go at Costello.
- Brogden has been a victim of the media’s and the Labor Party’s venomous unfairness and double standards. I hope he comes through it and gets on with a rewarding life. Still, I somehow can’t imagine Churchill or the Duke of Wellington cutting their wrists in such circumstances.Posted by Susan Norton on 09/04 at 05:12 AM • permalink
- Whitlam called Vietnamese refugees “fucking yellow balts”.Posted by Young and Free on 09/04 at 06:05 AM • permalink
- Balts was Whitlam’s derogatory term for people who had come to the Australia from the Baltic States after the Soviet Union’s genocidal invasions of them in 1940 (the result of a secret clause in the molotov-Ribentropp pact of 1939).
They aroused Whitlam’s undying hatred when they protested at the Whitlam Government becoming the first western government to recognise the Soviet incorporation of the Baltic States as legal, and demonstrated against it (Other Baltic demonstrators dogged him when he was travelling overseas deluding himself that he was some sort of world statesman).
Posted by Susan Norton on 09/04 at 11:48 AM • permalink
- I might have mentioned above that the “BValts”, being refugees from Communism, tended to be non-Labor voters, and Whitlam obviously belived the Vientmaese refugees wd. be the same.Posted by Susan Norton on 09/04 at 11:50 AM • permalink
- Whitlam is very ill. He’ll probably die soon—maybe even before the 30th anniversary of his dismissal in November.
When he dies, there will be lots of eulogising from the Left. I hope there’s a way to counter the post-mortem glorification of Saint Gough without trawling the depths of necro-heckling like some lefties did when the Pope died.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 09/04 at 07:40 PM • permalink
- #2 Whitlam may not have fucked an Arab, but he certainly rooted Australia good and proper.
Let’s not forget one of Whitlam’s other notable failures: the abandonment of East Timor to the Indonesians. What a gall the lefties have – first they desert our former allies, the East Timorese, and then they make a career of wailing about their plight – a plight they contributed to. How ironic that it was their great nemesis, John Howard, who rectified their disgraceful sell-out of these people.
- EvilPundit, you have cheered up my Monday morning!Posted by Susan Norton on 09/04 at 11:09 PM • permalink
Oh. I was so sure the answer was George Bush.