Humble servant of the Nation

From Roseanne to Hanson, a real week of idiocy

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Without getting in to the ghastly post-surgery details, I have been sitting and watching the world from behind closed doors with my new bladder, somewhat more impressively known as a neo-bladder.

It’s a tremendous bit of kit, a bag fashioned from a bit of my small intestine, stitched up like a baseball by the surgeons to stop any leaking. It’s just six weeks old and the only problem is the neo-bladder doesn’t really know it’s a bladder and that means I need to be within a handpass of a brasco at all times or to put it kindly in stand up comedy speak, the front three rows will get wet.

It does provide a unique if occasionally dislocated view of the world.

All the unexpected interruptions notwithstanding, I think I have seen enough of this week to discern that it has had more than its fair share of idiocy.

As evidence, I offer the following:

Pauline Hanson’s claims that NSW PHON senator Brian Burston betrayed her by not betraying the agreement he and she had made with the Mathias Cormann over corporate tax cuts. This led to a smorgasbord of betrayal and from a distance it was difficult to know who betrayed whom first.

Reaching deep into her handbag for the victim card, Pauline turned on the water works on Sky News last night and now Burston is no longer welcome in the PHON tent despite him saying he still wants to be a member of the party.

In 2016, PHON had four senators. Now they can hold party room meetings in the back seat of a Kia Cerato. The good news for the freshly appointed PHON whip, Peter Georgiou, is that his job has just got a whole lot easier. He can discharge his responsibilities with a functioning walkie talkie.

Yesterday also saw a fight for supremacy between Environment Minister, Greg Hunt and Opposition leader, Bill Shorten over who can be ruder to women. Shorten had the runs on the board after abusing a woman in a shop over the availability of a hot pie back in 2012. Hunt’s expletive-laced spray directed at the Mayor of Katherine, 71-year-old Fay Miller was allowed to pass quietly through to the keeper for almost six months until the Herald-Sun ran the story on its front page yesterday. Hunt apologised both privately and publicly to Miller shortly thereafter, saying to do both was the “right thing to do.”

There’s nothing like a politician’s apology, with nothing being the operative word.

One must wonder about the US media and whether they’ll ever come to terms with Donald Trump. Yesterday Trump had a brief meeting with another former star of reality TV, Kim Kardashian. The New York Post ran a most amusing front page, but other media organisations regarded this meeting of minds and substantial backsides as a sign of the End Times, an impending planet destroying Armageddon on its way.

Had they forgotten about Richard Nixon and Elvis, Ronald Reagan and Michael Jackson, George W Bush and Bono, Barack Obama and just about anyone even vaguely famous who wandered by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Celebs have been visiting the White House since way back, when Abe Lincoln said: “I need a night at the theatre like a hole in the head.” But when Trump plays host, albeit with a low rent celeb, media orgs various lose their minds. This was barely a story and yet there it was, getting a run not just in the US but across all television news services in Australia and I watched every single one.

Who cares? They do apparently. Whether the audience does or not is another matter.

The biggest idiot of the week by far was Roseanne Barr. No contest.

When the Roseanne story first broke, my first thought was, “Wow, Twitter gets another one” but that is missing the point. Also missing the point was the congratulations extended to the US network, ABC, but I believe the plans they executed so swiftly had been in place for months.

Roseanne had to go. In fact, she should have gone long before, after various unhinged Twitter attacks on Chelsea Clinton and George Soros. But that’s not to say ABC was not complicit in Barr’s behaviour at least to a point.

There are a few things the media has largely ignored in this story. Firstly, Roseannerevamped contained just nine episodes when the norm for a sitcom in the US is 22. This tells me there was some scepticism about the show and that a plan B was in effect if it didn’t work or if Barr misbehaved. She was known to be a serious problem way back when Roseanne had its first incarnation and I believe the US network gave her just enough rope in the second.

ABC took the program on because they wanted a little of the blue collar pro-Trump action. It paid off to the tune of 18.7 million viewers on average across the nine episodes (the ratings did drop off in the latter episodes in the truncated series but only off almost record highs from the early episodes).

We often see journalists trudging around western Pennsylvania or in the backwoods of Wisconsin trying to understand the appeal of President Trump to working class Americans. Whether ABC understood it or not they decided they wanted to play to that crowd but they did so having five bob each way. Barr and her show were on double secret probation from the outset.

The US network regarded Barr as a loose cannon but one that could be disposed of quickly. Certainly, a second series had been commissioned but significantly the advertising had not been sold. It would have become almost impossible to do so after Barr’s racist tweet and the social media backlash.

A little digging of the kind I did earlier this week shows just how problematic Barr could be to any network and especially one owned by Disney Corp.

This excerpt from Barr’s blog was published well before she commenced her long walk to Trumpism. It is indicative of the risk ABC took. In relation to Roseanne’s many quasi-political rants, it is not exceptional. It is the kind of tirade she was well known for. It is virulently anti-Semitic, utterly without substance, relying on bizarre conspiracy theories and almost laughably wrong.

“Many of the Palestinian people are Jewish and became Christian after Israel stole their land and homes. They were dark skinned, and so driven out of their homes by a Cheney-ized Judeo-Christian Bushite America. The Jewish American socialists are sending a flotilla from America to break the blockade of the anti-Semitic Zionists in Gaza! Zionists are German. Weird hybrid. In order to defeat Euro-socialism, Hitler leveraged the rich Jewish industrialists against the working-class Jews. The Russian accounts say that the last trains to Auschwitz were first class, as that is all the leverage left to the Jewish oligarchs within the ‘Reich’, (other than the Jews like Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler at the top).”

I believe the ABC did not act swiftly as was reported but rather put in place some risk management procedures it had already developed should the star of the show go off the reservation as she very clearly did.

There are always risks for celebs using social media to push political barrows and when that turns into ugly racist rants, as it did with Barr’s tweet the new Hollywood or indeed Burbank post Weinstein is not about to protect the star or go to ground as it might have in the old days.

Now, I’d love to stay and chat but I really must go.

This article as originally published in The Australian on 1 June, 2018

317 Comments

  • Huger Unson says:

    Birthday Honours list coming soon, Jack. Another opportunity to give the forelock a good tug.
    Could be a test of Turnbull Govt’s commitment to “Western values”, whatever they may be.

  • Milton says:

    I’m getting a bit fed up with people knocking the abilities of celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton. I’ve happened to stumble across some of their earlier “art house” films and can assure you that neither are lacking in certain gifts or talents. Just watching them makes me want to stiffen the sinews and summon the blood to defend them.

  • Tracy says:

    RIP Anthony Bourdain, another suicide at 61.
    Loved his books on his life and food so irreverent and kick ass, what a rotten shame.
    Who knows what lies beneath☹️

    • Jack The Insider says:

      Yes, a great shock. Lovely tribute here in the LA Times by Mexican-American writer, Gustavo Arellano.
      http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-arellano-anthony-bourdain-20180608-story.html?outputType=amp#click=https://t.co/A8ZjvL7XJ4

    • Trivalve says:

      His death seems to have really hit a nerve. He always had an edge it has to be said. But sad. Vale him.

    • Milton says:

      I agree Tracy, he was my favourite “foodie”. I enjoyed Kitchen Confidential and even got a few tips and regularly watch his shows. Certainly a shock as he still seemed to be on top, at least career wise.
      When I heard of Kate Spade’s death her name didn’t ring a bell but my wife informed me that the mother in law had given me a set of 4 of her canape plates for xmas not long back. Very hip they are too.

      Both very sad, and more so as kids on the cusp of adolescence are involved. Never underestimate depression as a God awful illness.

    • Penny says:

      Good post Tracy. I am devastated by his death, but if anybody asked me why I’m not sure I could answer. I’ve read the books, watched his travels and just loved him. A sad day indeed….God I wish we understood what lies beneath as you so eloquently put it. The man will be missed ☹️

    • Razor says:

      Well,said Tracy. Mrs Razor and myself loved watching his stuff. We just don’t know what lies below with people.

    • Dwight says:

      In summing up, it’s the constitution, it’s Mabo, it’s justice, it’s law, it’s the vibe and aah no that’s it, it’s the vibe.

    • BASSMAN says:

      Shorten is still favoured among Labor voters – 39 per cent support to Albanese’s 22 per cent, according to Newspoll – however across the electorate, Albanese is the preferred Labor leader among 26 per cent of voters, with Shorten trailing him on 23 per cent.

    • Carl on the Coast says:

      Bill is “brain dead” …. yeah I agree Razor, seems he has borrowed Barnaby’s akubra too.

  • BASSMAN says:

    SOUTHS:-scraped home. Feel sorry for Ricky Stuart (Raiders)….how many games has this
    bloke lost on the bell?

  • Carl on the Coast says:

    Wow! This university autonomy shindig continues. It appears to have really put a bee under the bonnets of a cadre of VC’s as well as a hodge podge of vacuous academics at the very mention of allowing their students to have a squiz at the history of western civilization.

    Seems easy to expose a professor’s pique nowadays, poor petals.

    • Trivalve says:

      Two of my loin-fruits have graduated from ANU in the past 5 years with art/arts/art history/international relations degrees and their coursework fully embraced the study of Western civilisation (although the dreaded east did rear its head I would say). I reckon that it’s the Right that’s going off its nana and no-one in the mortally-offended camp seems to be considering for a moment that the outside interference is the issue and that it might just be the case. Brian Schmidt is probably wondering why he shouldn’t just go back to pondering the stars.

  • BASSMAN says:

    Razor says:
    JUNE 5, 2018 AT 6:56 AM…. AGREE-WITH GROWTH AT 3.1% EVEN IF IT IS NOT SHOWING UP IN IMPROVED WAGES, HOME OWNERSHIP,NATIONAL DEBT AND JOBS ETC THE LOOTERS HAVE SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT. A REFUGEE BOAT AND A TERROR SCARE WITH THIS WOULD BE ENOUGH TO CARRY THEM ACROSS THE LINE WITH SHORTEN AS LEADER. TURNBULL SHOULD BE VERY CAREFUL. KEATING WOULD HAVE WON EASILY AGAINST DOWNER BUT HE HOUNDED HIM OUT. TURNBULL NEEDS SHORTEN. HE CAN BEAT HIM WITH ABBOTT AND DUTTS AS HIT MEN BUT NO WAY COULD HE BEAT ALBO OR ANYBODY ELSE NO MATTER HOW MUCH BIG BUSINESS GIVE HIM. EXPECT A HAWKE-HAYDEN SCENARIO IF THE POLLS GET CLOSE. TURNBULL SHOULD DO HIS BEST TO KEEP THE POLLS WHERE THEY ARE WHICH IS PROVING AN EASY JOB AS HE ATTACKS MEDICARE,REFUGEES, THE POOR AND THE UNEMPLOYED.

  • Carl on the Coast says:

    I saw a criticism on here about the government’s intention to remove the energy supplement from the Newstart Allowance. Its a deceitful, non-productive decision indeed.

    Layabouts need all the energy supplements they can get.

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    POTUS Trump has just indicated, Mr Insider, that should the 1st meeting between himself and Kim Jong un go well on June 12th and beyond, Kim will then get an Invitation to visit Donald at the White House USA! Goodness me I can see my dear friend Mr Baptiste and some others choking and spitting phlegm. Of course, a little further down the track the Nobel Peace Prize am sure will be awarded to Donald, and richly deserved may I be bold enough to say so. Salad days, Mr insider, salad days.

    • Jean Baptiste says:

      Yer dreamin’

      • Henry Blofeld says:

        Bless you, dear Mr Baptiste, it must be galling for you and the extreme Left to see POTUS Trump succeed on so many fronts. Cheers

        • Jean Baptiste says:

          Salad days ? Limp as lettuce and Henry, you’re as green as grass. Where exactly has that moron succeeded? The USA will be the biggest business Trump has bankrupted yet, and he’s bankrupted a few. I’m convinced he is a Russian plant.
          He is a grandstanding bigmouthed show pony who has no intention of demilitarising the Korean peninsular, and no idea how to go about it if he did. FOS! Promise the world and deliver nothing.
          Seriously, if he had one foot in Melbourne and the other in Devonport he couldn’t p**s in the Bass Strait.

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