Guest post by SB
Bolt’s latest column “A good boy turned bad” is full of his typically casual defamation of a recently deceased citizen. Even though the subject of his post may have deserved some criticism, Bolt’s article displays his most unlovely characteristics -
Polarising provocation:
“Aren’t the many nicer people, who die anonymously after leading lives as virtuous as they are obscure, far more deserving of this newspaper space I’m giving to Cobani’s little thug?”
Callous disregard of the feelings of the bereaved:
“So forgive my indifference to the tears of another dolly only too drunk on the scent of a violent man.”
Hypocrisy:
“I politely mumbled approval as she recounted how she’d brought him to church and to concerts at the Arts Centre, and was so proud when he started reading National Geographic and the paper in just grade 3.”
No doubt he didn’t tell the mum about his more callous thoughts that showed up in the article.
Blame the Stereotypical Bogeyman, in this case the absent father. Bolt the criminologist conveniently works a favourite hobby-horse into the story.
As it is not controversial that the subject of the story is unlovely, the main point is that the article is a classic example of Bolt’s journalistic style.
24 Comments
17 May, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I laughed out loud when I saw this at the top of the comments for that story:
17 May, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Sorry, this.
17 May, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Every now and then, perhaps to try and remind us that he does belong to the human species, Bolt tries out a little emotive piece like this one. The hypocrisy of it just makes me gag. If this piece, despite all it’s attempts to apologise for itself, were written by an Age journo, Bolt would be the first weighing in to accuse them of pandering to “victimology”.
And to get an idea of how even his own readers and admirers didn’t know what to think, have a look at the contrast in comments. From something like: “ah, you’re a wonderful and caring human being…just like us”; to: “what are you on; that filthy piece of scum deserved exactly what he got and good riddance”.
At the end of it, I was left with zero sense of what Bolt actually believes and I know he couldn’t give a toss about any of those players in his story. They represented just an opportunity for him. A broken heart? FFS, you’ll have to get hold of one first, Bolt.
17 May, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I don’t see the hypocrisy you are trying to highlight here in Bolt. Is he hypocritical because he himself is a drug dealer? or carries a car load of weapons to fire at police?
Are you calling out his own hypocrisy in that he himself abandons his own children?
I think he makes a quite valid point in relation to the absent father, and I believe it is disingeneous to dismiss the argument as Bolts “stereotypical hobby horse”.
Sociology studies show that the effect of the absent father is quite damaging to society at large.
Is bringing this fact to the attention of the greater public worthy of such scorn?
17 May, 2008 at 1:56 pm
“As it is not controversial that the subject of the story is unlovely, the main point is that the article is a classic example of Bolt’s journalistic style.”
In other words, “I’ve got nothing to counteract the arguments Bolt presents. I just don’t like his style”
Such a biting and relevant addition to social discourse.
17 May, 2008 at 3:48 pm
“Aren’t the many nicer people, who die anonymously after leading lives as virtuous as they are obscure, far more deserving of this newspaper space I’m giving to Cobani’s little thug?”
yeah people like Carl Williams and Mick Gatto who the Herald Sun elevated to friggin Saints this year by their fawning Underbelly coverage (underbelly is truly overrated people but I digress) and constant updates to the goings on of people like this even after conviction by the courts and subsequent sentencing of 35 years for multiple murders. I dunno I mistakenly think Bolt will one day ultimately realise that they are contributing to the negative aspects of society by doing the very job they are doing.
“Sociology studies show that the effect of the absent father is quite damaging to society at large.
Is bringing this fact to the attention of the greater public worthy of such scorn?”
Well society is well and truly effed then cos this is quite common. next Bolt will be telling us how disingenuous it is to blame all a man’s present failings on his bad upbringing. After all we have to take responsibility for our actions and not blame unconscious drives and Freudian (lefty?) theory for every little problem.
17 May, 2008 at 4:29 pm
underbelly is truly overrated people but I digress
Agreed. It is the biggest piece of shit ever. The only saving graces were Damian Walshe-Howling and the other two actors who played Carl and Roberta, whoever they are.
Back O/T.
What was that woman ringing Bolt for in the first place? He is the shock jock of journos.
17 May, 2008 at 4:30 pm
“After all we have to take responsibility for our actions and not blame unconscious drives and Freudian (lefty?) theory for every little problem.”
Amusing to watch leftists clamour over each other to get to the “Right” of Bolt on this issue.
No position is not maleable, so long as we disagree with everything Bolt says.
18 May, 2008 at 1:46 am
Good post, SB.
As someone who has studied most of Freud, I can tell you he wasn’t ‘lefty’. Nonetheless, he wasn’t tory either. If you wan’t to invoke Siggy, you better know your stuff, or you will be called on it.
And ‘Infidel’, you’re being disingenuous, no doubt to cover up for the fact that your an idiot. Surely your sheltered workshop has called you in by now…
19 May, 2008 at 4:16 pm
It certainly contradicts his line of argument used regarding a photo of David Hicks in an advertising campaign by GetUp … “This strikes me as fundamentally dishonest. It is not a nine-year-old boy that is awaiting trial on charges of carrying unlicenced freckles, but an adult who has openly acknowledged he trained with al Qaeda.”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/mm/
19 May, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Great to see you posting articles SB – congrats on getting out there.
In this case however, as is so often the case, I disagree with you!! I read that piece by Bolt and thought it was one of the rare times that he was actually being realistic – attempting to embrace the nuance of life that he usually deliberately ignores in order to make a political point.
I read the bits that you’ve quoted above as the necessary bones that he needed to throw to his drooling commentators. Overall I found the piece to be one of his more balanced and admirable columns.
19 May, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Mondo, the point is that even though almost everyone agrees that the subject of Bolt’s attack is unlovely and therefore will agree with much of what he writes, Bolt’s craven style shines through.
You have his smart-arsed nastiness displayed in the column, which he hypocritically withheld from the boy’s mother, reserving for her his “politely mumbled approval” before vomiting his true feelings onto his public forum.
As for “attempting to embrace nuance”, blaming everything on the father’s absence is a cheap way to reinforce prejudices, but hardly a nuanced analysis. At best it is that staple of smug punditry, the reckless guess.
I read the bits that you’ve quoted above as the necessary bones that he needed to throw to his drooling commentators.
That is hardly a justification: what sort of journalist either seeks or performs for “drooling commentators”?
20 May, 2008 at 9:28 am
I wonder if Bolt called this woman’s son a “thug” or a “violent man” on the phone when she was talking to him? Other commentators (thinking radio) would probably ask the hard questions directly rather than leaving to a column written after the fact.
20 May, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I’m no fan of Bolt SB – I absolutely agree with you about his craven style and his cheap use of the issue to push his 1950’s view of ‘family’.
I was just stunned to realise that he was attempting to look at the issue from another perspective. Attempting to show that the deceased was more than just a cartoonish villan. Maybe I’m being too generous towards him but I actually felt that he displayed a great deal of sympathy towards both the mother and her dead son.
And let’s be honest, it would have been far easier for him to rant on about how this deranged and violent criminal was an indictment on Labor’s soft-on-crime approach and our ‘liberal’ judiciary.
20 May, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Mondo: I was just stunned to realise that he was attempting to look at the issue from another perspective.
Perhaps, but only because he had another barrow to push.
20 May, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Nice one, SB.
21 May, 2008 at 1:21 am
Good Article SB, your contributions add a lot to the debate here and you have nailed this one for me. Bolt’s pathetic, nauseating and sometimes downright discracefull attempts at journalism, not just his politics is what makes his ‘work’ so contemtable.
Its what Boltist morons and dunderheads like “Infidel” cant understand. They think that any opposition to Bolt, is purely motivated by politics and that you have to be some big ‘lefty’, not just a rational and mature person interested in adult discussion, to critique his rubbish.
21 May, 2008 at 1:37 am
This whole article by Bolt, was purely about Bolt, to elevate his own perceived importance as a evaluator of societal issues, onto the public sphere, by positioning himself as a important judge on this one, and to project an image as Bolt: the nuanced thinker of complex issues. Also, as SB has pointed out, he uses the issues to further champion one of his stereotyped black and white arguments about family structure.
He is desperate to fill what he perceives as his important role as judge, whilst at the same time attempting to articulate that really the issue is nothing to him.
He emotionally abuses this poor woman and holds her to ransom by teasing her into thinking that he might be a source sympathy for her, allows her to divulge to him, only to then riddle his following columns with continual venomous caricatures about her son, such as “Cobani’s little thug”.
“I owe her nothing, and even less to her son. It’s nothing to me that you learn that that peddler of ice and heroin, this gun-waving wiseguy, was liked even by some members of his mother’s church.”
No Bolt, you don’t owe her anything and who cares if it means anything to you anyway, so why have you bothered to write a lengthy article on the topic.
The only thing that saves this entry from being an utter disgrace, is the last part where Bolt does articulate that he feels some empathy towards the situation, however its not hard not to be suspicious of how genuine this is. I think it is fair to say that, Bolt is at least partly motivated by another opportunity to project his self image of compassionate-conservative, and at best his pontifications amount to crude punditry as pointed out by SB.
I feel sad for the mother, for perhaps unwittingly and not completely wisely, allowing Bolt’s continued involvement in what is obviously a deeply personal and painful experience for her.
23 May, 2008 at 9:13 am
Good on ya, Chris. You ought to think about contributing a post here one day.
23 May, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Clearly the mother was a damned fool for speaking toBolt who is nothing more than a misreble creep. The guy got into drugs, and peddling drugs is a pretty scummy thing to do we would all agree, don’t we, my little clone cardboard cut out pinko lefties???Alas who wouldn’t try to squirm out of the cops grip under the circumstances. Of course the cops have to be action figures and get the choppers out and have a high speed car chase. They knew who he was and didn’t need to pull out the guns but of course immediate arrest was the only option. No doubt if the hadn’t got him immediately he would have rampaged through the streets of Melbourne killing dozens of innocent bystanders while forcing desperate drug addicts to choke down on ice.
23 May, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Nicola, you’re gigging us aren’t you? Please!
You are not seriously having a go at the police in this situation are you?
25 May, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I’m not interested in dishing out blame to any of the involved parties, although in many situations where car chases and helicopters are used to capture criminals I think too much haste and not enough strategy is employed. What do you think? To be honest I didnt’ follow the story from the start, did the offender threaten the police with his shot-gun?
25 May, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Er, where I come from, drug dealers are the scum of the earth. Drug dealers who shoot at police are underneath the scum of the earth. Kind of sub-slime if you will.
I don’t have any family in the police, however I know a few officers on a superficial / social level.
They have such a tough gig having to deal with the worst elements of our society that it bothers me a lot when they are criticised unduly.
Most often the criticism is levelled at them for failing to apprehend criminals, yet it sometimes transpires that they are condemned for the way they apprehend criminals when they do.
Too often official enquiries, media investigations and assessments by the general public are made without any experience.
It amazes me that coroners and heads of enquiries will take days, weeks or months analysing and speculating from the safety of their armchairs about what person X should have done in a nightmarish situation with seconds to make life and death decisions, when they will thankfully never have to place themselves in such circumstances.
No, I believe policeought to have access and charter to utilise whatever means are available to increase apprehension rates, whether this involves helicopters, dog squads, robotic devices, whatever.
The old high speed chase is an old chestnut doing the rounds here in Adelaide at the moment.
Police are often targeted after chasing some bogan who slams into a tree at high speed. People call for fantastical methods of investigation and detection to follow up the individuals later, despite the fact that they are usually driving stolen vehicles which they just dump and burn before disappearing.
It is so laughable now that the criminals now know that they just have to exceed 100kph and the police will call off the pursuit.
Yep, if it is stupid kids “joyriding” (*&ck I hate that term), then no, I don’t want them to die horribly in a car accident or cause injury or death to some innocent party.
The problem is that it is armed robbers and violent offenders who are evading the police by exceeding the allowable pursuit speeds.
Which brings me back to the case described in the article. I suspect most people would be grateful that the police risked their lives to deal with dangerous bastard and would consider them to be heroes rather than “action figures”.
25 June, 2008 at 2:05 pm
You make some good points and I respect your perspective especially thoughts on police putting their lives on the line to aprehend dangerous criminals. Where I come drug dealer are not sub-slime, more often foolish victims wanting easy money. I believe the subslime are the manufacturers of chemical substances, cocaine/heroin producers etc. Any drug dealer who persuades or introduces chemicial/narcotics to non-drug users also sub slime as you put it. I would like to see police/governments focus their efforts on the producers not the dealers.
Nicola
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