23 April, 2008...10:38 am
As surely as night follows day
By MrLefty
Resident Age cranky old self-appointed “lefty” Catherine Deveny sets the side back a few years with a facile piece exhibiting negative lefty steretypes. (We “miss hating Howard”, the out of touch duffer declares.)
Then Andrew Bolt attacks her as if she represents all of us. (”As if we didn’t know,” he snidely remarks.) See? Lefties do hate! One of them admitted it! I told you so!
You know what? Maybe Catherine Deveny is a right-wing satirical creation designed to embarrass us, just as The Editor suspects the same in reverse of Andrew Bolt. (Whichever lefty is behind the Bolt sockpuppet, please promise us you’ll reveal the gag eventually.)
Because they couldn’t really be what they claim to be and be genuinely unaware of how much they make their respective professed sides cringe, could they?
58 Comments
23 April, 2008 at 11:03 am
I’ve long found Catherine Deveny WORSE than Bolt, if only because she’s supposed to be representing ‘our’ side. Often enough I agree with her start and end points, but her reasoning and logic is just as idiotic as Bolt’s.
She gives lefties a bad name, but presumably gets people on both sides angry enough that they always read her, which I guess sells papers…
23 April, 2008 at 11:26 am
Get a sense of humour!
Catherine Deveny does not need to behave or engage in reason and logic. She writes opinion and television criticism. Her style is gonzo and self deprecating. Its taking the piss of herself, her friends and others.
She does not represent a “side”, which is what Bolt claims and Hoopla implies. The fact that Bolt reads her columns as though they were missives from the other side shows his lack of humour and agenda. Don’t fall in the same trap.
23 April, 2008 at 11:35 am
Yeah, she’s hilarious. Such a wit!
23 April, 2008 at 11:35 am
I dunno about that, Doublespeak.
I’ve left a comment on Bolt’s blog re his “I told you so”. However, I hold little hope for it being published, even though there was no name-calling or swearing. But it contain a differing opinion, so let’s wait and see.
23 April, 2008 at 11:36 am
*contained
23 April, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Excellent. I didn’t get snipped, neither did Ant’s comment.
But sheesh, there’s a fair bit of “Yes, Andy, you knew it and we knew it too! Teh Left are all hate, hate, hate…”
Not realising, of course, how much hate fills their little hearts for Rudd and Labor, the Greens, the Left, and so on.
23 April, 2008 at 12:32 pm
That wasn’t the Ant you’re thinking of, Bron.
23 April, 2008 at 12:45 pm
No? Oh, poo bum.
23 April, 2008 at 1:16 pm
It will not stun you to learn that she used to be a stand-up comedian. This is obvious when you read her oh-so-droll one-liners and subtle satire. She sure is a scream!
23 April, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I really can’t picture her doing stand-up. I’ve never read anything of hers that was even remotely funny.
I just assumed she was a lifestyle reporter who got a gig writing opinion pieces some time when things were quiet at Spencer St.
23 April, 2008 at 1:50 pm
A bit rich of Bolt and his cronies to complain about one-eyed Howard haters.
I have taken issue with Deveney in the past, but unlike Bolt she is not some self-proclaimed shit-talking oracle of the greater good.
She also isn’t a cunt.
23 April, 2008 at 2:21 pm
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23583419-5000117,00.html
Excellent column by Bolt today.
Quite amusing how Rudd has created this unelected echo chamber, that claims to have the Australian peoples mandate.
Chilling
23 April, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I wouldn’t mind so much about Bolt accusing the left of Howard hating, if he so shamelessly hadn’t become a partisan Rudd hater!
I guess its part of the neo-con tabloid journalists’ philosophy of “throw as much mud as you can, justified or not, hypocritical or not, some of it will surely stick”.
23 April, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Let me try and make this relevant. Bolt is on 3AW each Tuesday morning. Speaking of 3AW, Neil Mitchell has been doing his best to discredit Rudd and Labor from the beginning. If ever a radio peronality needed a “Bolt Watch” type of site he is it. He claims to be impartial. If he is I’m Joan Rivers. Great site by the way.
23 April, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Deveny finally goes barking mad.
(Psst. It’s a ruse to flush out those on the Right who can’t tell when someone’s pulling their chain. Or rope.)
23 April, 2008 at 5:30 pm
My apologies for the “off the topic post” however just in case it isn’t published on Bolt’s blog…..
In response to
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/70000_year_old_woman_to_be_queensland_governor/
Listen to the rumbles coming from the right, filled with vengeful hate, teeth gnashing, foam and saliva dripping from their mouth. Terribly sad! Obviously a slow news day hey Andrew? Is this really how you spend your time? Time well spent?
By the way Andrew, I was deeply moved by your plastic bag plight of recent weeks at Chadstone. Man I thought the Karen/Burmese refugees had it tough on the Thai Burma border, you know?? 60 years of civil war, countless lives destroyed and lost ahh but then I read your dilema and quickly reminded the Karen that there are indeed other people in the world suffering for different reasons. Your suffering is up there with J. Hansord - the dilemma? washing of milk cartons for recycling. That individual is bravely defiant and refuses to recycle - wow! can someone please find a purple heart?
We have started the Andrew Bolt plastic bag fund at Mae Lah camp. All recycled bags will be sent to the HUN head quarters in Melbourne or perhaps we could just post them to the house with the extra green lawn and water sucking petunias?
What would we do Andrew without your brave exploits? Your tireless search for “big issues”
Be strong dear boy!! ;-P
23 April, 2008 at 5:50 pm
And of course Blair has picked up on Deveny too:
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/2020_x_2/
23 April, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Does the HUN have to comply to any publishing standards
How can racist tripe like the following be allowed to be published?
Seriously , can someone please advise me of the legalities?
I give you today’s bigoted serve. 3 published entries in a row…..
70,000 ? It keeps going up by 10,000.
Hasn’t it occurred to the people who talk about how long the aborigines have been in Australia that the rest of the planet was also populated by other mainly superior civilizations during the same period ?
Did it take the Aborigines 70,000 years to invent the pointed stick (spear) ? Or did they invent it 70,000 years ago and fail to improve on it for 70,000 years ?
The longer they were here the greater the mystery of why did they not achieve anything in that time.
Bruce Smith (Reply)
Wed 23 Apr 08 (01:11pm)
MartinX replied to Bruce Smith
Wed 23 Apr 08 (01:51pm)
70 000 years in the hottest, driest continent, and no-one thought to invent a hat
Read Guns, Germs and Steel for an essay on why some civilisations progressed why others didn’t.
Paul replied to Bruce Smith
Wed 23 Apr 08 (01:58pm)
Perfectly put Bruce.
The Indeginous Peoples of Australia may have been here for 40,000 or 70,000 years, but they gave this country absolutely ZILCH.
And don’t tell me about culture……a few rock paintings in caves……wow!
And they still don’t contribute anything to this society except misery for their own.
23 April, 2008 at 7:08 pm
hmmmm editor is a bit quiet on this thread. i know why!!!!
23 April, 2008 at 7:10 pm
maybe bruce smith should find out what a “feather foot” man has learnt to do.
23 April, 2008 at 8:03 pm
So, what do you know about editor [sic] being a bit quiet on this thread, notallright?
23 April, 2008 at 8:59 pm
it would be personal information that, not being el stalko, i’m not prepared to give out. i can still give a subtle dig too him and tell my mum that he’s not defending cathrine.
23 April, 2008 at 9:15 pm
It does see strange to me with Bolt’s forum that left wing arguments are eagerly filtered out, whilst clearly racist comments often get through somehow, and then removed only after several hours (with an apology if we’re lucky.)
I’m sure that’s not intentional though.
24 April, 2008 at 1:24 am
Deveny’s talent for lazy, obvious gags is rivalled, surely, only by Wil Anderson.
24 April, 2008 at 8:46 am
cept wil anderson is funny.
24 April, 2008 at 9:05 am
Wil Anderson THINKS he is funny. That’s his problem- when you crack up at your own jokes, it’s embarrassing.
24 April, 2008 at 9:36 am
Hey, I always crack up at my own jokes. They’re HIL-ar-ious.
24 April, 2008 at 9:51 am
Anyone seen today’s effort ?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/best_and_brightest_barbarian/
Directing attention to the Pigtailed One, and admittedly pretty vile comments at her blog, whilst at the same time, making up pathetic excuses for the racist crap that litters his blog.
“It was a leftie in disguise !!”
Wha’ ?
24 April, 2008 at 10:13 am
I know why he’s not here either, notallright, and I also know who you are.
Who’s El Stalker now?
24 April, 2008 at 10:14 am
Also, he’s on holiday. But if he WAS here he probably wouldn’t be posting in this thread.
24 April, 2008 at 10:26 am
“It does see strange to me with Bolt’s forum that left wing arguments are eagerly filtered out, whilst clearly racist comments often get through somehow, and then removed only after several hours (with an apology if we’re lucky.)”
I love the irony of him regularly publishing that sort of drivel, but then attacking Marieke Hardy for her commenters.
24 April, 2008 at 10:28 am
Andy - there’s a considerable difference. Marieke leaves pretty much all comments up, no matter how abusive or unpleasant they are - often against her. You, on the other hand, have moderators tightly watching your ship. Is it not fair to say that those comments that you publish can therefore claim to have your approval, since they have to go through the moderation process?
24 April, 2008 at 10:37 am
Good point Jeremy. Anything that appears on an unmoderated site can just be attributed to an assertion of absolute free speech, or just a lazy blog-owner, while anything that appears on Bolt’s site has been approved by a cage of winged monkeys- or moderators as he prefers to call them.
His defence that a fill-in moderator let the racist slime slip through is pathetic and simply a lie. I wonder how long it would have remained posted had comrade Faine not tapped Bolt on the shoulder.
24 April, 2008 at 11:35 am
So, let me get this straight. Someone pretends to be a rightwinger and posts comments that are deliberately racist. They slip through, get published and removed as soon as they are noticed. That makes Andrew Bolt a racist or at least an approver of racism. But Ms Fits lets people publish defamatory or highly violent comments (including threats to kill children for the crime of who their parents are) and that is OK?
24 April, 2008 at 11:57 am
“They slip through, get published and removed as soon as they are noticed. ”
That means someone is still approving them to be published in the first place…
And, er. Free speech. Internet. You know, all those things that people should have a right to. If Bolt’s censoring (which unquestionably he does), then perhaps he should be censoring racist posts, rather than ones that disagree with him?
24 April, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Yes, but the point is that they were mistakenly approved. Presumably without the person approving them being aware of the content. And then removed. You cannot drawn any conclusion from that.
24 April, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Maybe Andrew is Jealous that Ms Fits recently won an award for blogging?
24 April, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Nic, as Gerard said elsewhere, they were removed 18 HOURS after first being posted. Would they have remained there forever if Bolt hadn’t been warned?
And you take his word for it that a fill-in moderator ‘let it slip by’? What, she/he didn’t even read it? If that’s true why have I had tens of posts in the past few months (including several in the past 2 days) rejected for no reason?
You simply cannot compare the 2 situations at all, for the reasons Jeremy gave above (which you conveniently ignore). By all accounts Hardy censors virtually nothing, so she cannot be accused of ‘allowing’ an offensive post to get up, while Bolt moderates everything and censors frequently, so he certainly CAN be accused of ‘allowing’ offensive posts to get up. His defence in this case is highly questionable, and besides, there are many many posts every day that are disgustingly racist, sexist, bigoted and pig-ignorant.
24 April, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I guess it must be hard to pick racism when they only say that the “White Australia” policy was a good idea.
Steven Rogan: +1
24 April, 2008 at 1:25 pm
so you know me john? is that through the same connection as the other guy? you know from the other place. the one we were talking bout before. about the other thing. damn sopranos.
24 April, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Chade: wha?
24 April, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I think he was saying that you’ve scored a point of me. However, the point I am making is that it is entirely possible that no-one actually saw the comment that was posted, before it was initially approved. That would certainly be the intent of the person who posted it - if they were deliberately posting a racist comment to see if it could get it past the moderators.
But, on your point - are your comments that are cut posted under the one username? If so, it may be your username that is automatically flagged for moderation. That could explain the inconsistency in the time taken to moderate.
For what it is worth - I agree that freedom of speech is important, but a private person has the right to moderate as they see fit what is posted on their websites. Most people here, I think, would agree that removing obviously racist posts is a good thing. I hope, also, that most people would think that removing threats to the lives of people’s children and to glassing opposition leaders is also a good thing.
24 April, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Nic: “…most people would think that removing threats to the lives of people’s children and to glassing opposition leaders is also a good thing.”
I’m not a veteran of blogging and I don’t have one of my own, but I’ve seen lots of blogs with comments like the ones referred to. They are nasty, vicious, violent and generally awful- but I have never believed that the authors of such work are making serious threats to any person. Rather, they are simply getting carried away by the anonymity of the ‘net.
Have you ever taken a look at Blair’s site? A few years ago I posted something at odds with the flow. The abuse and threats that followed were nothing compared to the example above. People Googled my name (ha! I was naive enough to use my name back then!), and from bits and pieces they found out about me, some true & some not, they threatened to contact my current and former employers and posted outrageous fabrications on Blair’s site about me based on my work. As a result, I learned my lesson, and grew a hide. But I never seriously feared I would be hurt, even though threats were made.
BTW, no I have used the same name for months now, and some get through while others don’t, as recently as today. As far as I can tell those that are disrespectful to The Man (though not nasty by any measure and certainly no worse than those who abuse other public figures) don’t get through.
24 April, 2008 at 5:26 pm
+1 means agreeance; i.e. I agree with your post…
“…the point I am making is that it is entirely possible that no-one actually saw the comment that was posted, before it was initially approved.”
Er, no. It’s not possible. The approval process is that someone actually looks at the post’s content.
25 April, 2008 at 12:57 am
According to the ‘old school’ way of doing things, a publisher is responsible for what he/she publishes.
End of.
If Bolty ‘allows’ racist rants to be published on his blog, then he is a racist.
Regardless of whether he can offer arguments of free speech or arms length editorial responsibility.
If Marieke Hardy does the same, then she is guilty of the same.
End of.
This silly bullshit of he said/she said is demeaning the already pathetically low standard of journalism in this country.
I would suggest that much gain could be made by ignoring the rantings of ‘opinionists’ such as Andrew Bolt.
Creatures like him, and others, are there to sell newspapers at the expense of journalism.
Getting into an argument about the political merits of shitty journalism does nothing to advance the cause of journalism.
What say we all take this to a higher level and use real journalism to show the creature(s) up as the frauds that they are?
25 April, 2008 at 7:46 am
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23594182-5000117,00.html
Great column today from Bolt highlighting the toothlessness of lickspittle Rudd and his compliance in handing over authority of Australian affairs over to the Chinese.
25 April, 2008 at 11:17 am
But we’re not journalists.
And anyway, we are trying to take it to a higher level, by challenging him and others like him when they lie, mislead, dogwhistle, abuse their position, pontificate, abuse and generally debase serious discussions by using juvenile arguments.
26 April, 2008 at 10:49 am
I love that Bolt has attributed the foul racism in the post on his site to a ‘vicious lefty’ and sychophants like Nic now simply take it as an article of faith.
Disgusting racist drivel on a right-wing hate site is automatically the work of a left-wing sock puppet, but similarly offensive commentary on left-wing sites is automatically authentic.
I can’t believe people really buy into this bullshit.
26 April, 2008 at 11:32 pm
notallright - I know who you are, baby.
27 April, 2008 at 6:09 pm
But we’re not journalists
Steven Rogan.
Ahh!, but we are Mr. Rogan, we certainly are.
Simply by adding our voices to this discussion we are expanding the ‘journal’ of thought on the issue.
We may not have the influence or audience of Andrew Bolt, but, thanks to the Internet and Blogs like this, we have an immediate and enduring voice.
Let me quote the words of a rather clever person;
we are trying to take it to a higher level, by challenging him and others like him when they lie, mislead, dogwhistle, abuse their position, pontificate, abuse and generally debase serious discussions by using juvenile arguments.
Couldn’t have said it better myself!!
28 April, 2008 at 7:37 am
I wonder what poor Andrew made Catherine Deveny’s ode to Gordon Ramsay. Poor Gordon - the crushes of such obnoxious bullies. Gordon obviously attracts those like himself, however has more talent than the rest of the trio. How about a show with Catherine or Andrew helping to fix the work of young journalists?
28 April, 2008 at 7:39 am
Sorry - this is the link. http://www.theage.com.au/news/tv–radio/cant-judge-a-cook-by-his-bovver/2008/04/24/1208743150245.html
28 April, 2008 at 2:46 pm
28 April, 2008 at 2:46 pm
‘blush’
28 April, 2008 at 5:18 pm
damn you mr surname.
i’ve got no clue who you are. obviously you’re linked to my mum’s workplace too but she said she didn’t know who you were. i can only guess you’re her. but she’d never call me baby.
can you give me a hint. are you a friend of hers on facebook?
29 April, 2008 at 7:50 am
John “Nevernude” Surname only knows your mum because I’ve explained the relationship before, notallright.
As for my response to this post, I think I probably read Deveny’s stuff with a better appreciation for her extreme piss taking style but I can understand that her sense of humour doesn’t always come across properly in her writing. I don’t think she meant what she wrote but I agree with Jeremy that she gave Bolt etc. a total free kick.
29 April, 2008 at 5:27 pm
This “nevernude” stuff has to stop, The Editor. It’s rubbish. I’m nude right now.
NAR - I’m not on FaceBook, but if I was, I wouldn’t totally friend your Mum. Send her quizzes and everything.
2 May, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Chade
24 April, 2008 at 5:26 pm
+1 means agreeance; i.e. I agree with your post…
Nothing means “agreeance”. Look it up in the dictionary. It’s not there.
Leave a Reply