blogging it real

Rodney fucking Hide.

Good god, the amount of publicity lavished on him as leader of a party consistently polling between 1 and 2 percent has to be seen to be believed. Almost every second time I visit the NZ Herald's home page, there's Rodders in his yellow jacket, from which emerges a pugilist's neck and turtle-like head (see photo).

Full credit to him, I suppose, for his ability to generate publicity about nothing (or, at least, about himself) ... but good god he's the leader of a fringe party full of arseholes.

Here's four and a half good reasons Rodney fucking Hide pisses me off:

1/ POLICY - He leads a party promoting ideas that are not merely discredited but almost universally-recognized as ruinous ("Since its inception, the Act Party has long been the junk shop for old and recycled conservative ideas ( see: supply side economics, de-regulation, less government) that have been discarded by the rest of the civilised world" - Gordon Campbell). Well, so be it, in a democracy you get people promoting dumb ideas: this is by far the least of Rodders' crimes.

2/ AWOL - For a fraction short of 2 years of the last parliamentary term, the tireless champion of the electors of Epsom went on what was best characterized (by someone, somewhere on public address, I believe) as a "taxpayer-funded voyage of self-discovery." He awoke to electoral reality at some point late in 2007, and then distinguished himself in 2008 by being noisy, including in support of a trucking industry that opposes user-pays. Go figure.

3/ COULDN'T GIVE A FUCK - ACT were frequently too lazy, disinterested and/or disorganized to vote in Parliament, what with Rodders off dancing, and his sidekick off in the territorials (I thought being an MP was supposed to be a 70+ hours/week job).

4/ CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL - stupidly parrots denialist talking points like "no net warming since 1998".

4.5/ CRIMES AGAINST THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Zero tolerence indeed!

Labels: epsom, NZ election 2008, rodders