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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

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    Short clip, Mr Insider, of POTUS Trump leaving the US on Air Force One to travel to Singapore to meet with Kim Jong un on June 12th.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmvMWo6QY4

    • Jean Baptiste says:

      Where was the big goodbye hug and kisses from the missus Henry?
      From the po faced dial of the Donald, who looks like he’s been booted out of the conjugal cot, we could be on the verge of World War Three. Watch out Kimmie, hell hath no fury like a boofhead scorned.
      His Nobel Prize might be a bit charred around the edges.

      Best wishes Henry.

      • Henry Blofeld says:

        Wrong once again dear Mr Baptiste and a “fact checker” provided for you. If you had bothered to seek the correct situation you would have found FLOTUS Trump is still recovering for a big Operation. Goodness dear chap does your distaste of all things US has plumbed new depths. Cheers

      • Mack the Knife says:

        Strange JB, money must be the superglue of all time, it will stick two of anything together, for a while anyway.

  • Trivalve says:

    Another one gorn, Danny Kirwan of the original, actual, proper Fleetwood Mac. Vale.

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    I say, Mr Insdr, with only 2 days to go now to the big Trump/Un meet in Singapore we learn that Kimmie will hopefully be arriving in an Ilyushin-62M jet, the last of which were made in Russia about 1990! Could be if the tired old plane throws a “rotor” then POTUS Trump may have to send his sleek Air Force One to pick him up! Questions are being asked as to whether the old Ilyushin-62M jet is up to the trip! On a brighter note we see Boeing is currently constructing a brand new State of the Art Air Force One that will be in service for Trumps 2nd term as POTUS. Maybe he might be able to offload the old AF1 to Kimmie! Strewth.
    https://tinyurl.com/y9gt39a7

  • Whirling Dervish says:

    Jack my advice today to Jeff Horn is when the bell goes for round one come out thrashing like a windmill. It won me a few fights in my younger Uni days. Don’t understand my big cauliflower ears though or my urge to eat onions.

  • Huger Unson says:

    I’ve just noticed the “mute words” setting in Twitter.
    Added ‘my heart is broken’ to ‘tim minchin’ and ‘absolutely’.
    Many more will follow them down the Idiot hole.

  • Trabvitch says:

    For all of you Maroons who were disappointed with Wednesday night’s refeering, a bit of breaking news…

    https://tinyurl.com/ydey72ew

  • Trabvitch says:

    The Betoota Advocate’s take on PH…

    https://tinyurl.com/y8vglp2c

  • Milton says:

    Anyone know the forecasted start for the Horn fight? I’ve searched but with no success. Not too keen to sit in a crowded club full of fight fans for 5 hours before the main event starts!!

    • Trivalve says:

      I saw he missed the weight

    • Henry Blofeld says:

      “Horn and Crawford are fighting at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas this Sunday, June 10.
      Coverage of the card begins at 10am (AEST) but the headliners are expected to walk to the ring around 12.30pm.”

    • BASSMAN says:

      They will NEVER tell U. I waited 5 hours in a a club waiting for his last fight against Manny Pacquiao. They want to squeeze every drop of money out of you they can before the Main Event.

    • Razor says:

      I’ll be heading to my local soon Milt!

  • Bella says:

    I made that comment Carl & I stand by it as someone on the front line that sees those poor stigmatized people when most have been busting their arses day in day out to get a job, going door-to-door in industrial areas, many without unaffordable resumes but want to work.
    I know that you all think they’re young “layabouts” but that judgement sticks the knife in to those men & women who, for varying legitimate reasons, were laid off from longtime permanent positions only to find that few employers want unskilled employees between the ages of 50-70. These decent people have to work at least 15 hours a week for free to receive that joke of an allowance but they do it with vigilance & care, just grateful for the chance to claw back some dignity in their lives.

    Not much surprises me anymore Carl but here was I thinking your heart was so much bigger than that post.

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    Our great Boxing Champion, Jeff Horn, currently the WBO Welterweight Champion of the World, had 3 goes at making the weight for his bout against an equally great Champion Terence Crawford in Las Vegas USA tomorrow. He had finally to strip down to his birthday suit to just make the weight and had he not done so would have lost the Title on the Scales. He’s from Brisbane QLD and at 30yo this will be his toughest fight. Our QLD Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, is also a huge fan of Jeff, as am I. He is also a qualified Schoolteacher.
    https://tinyurl.com/ya3qanvc

    • Henry Blofeld says:

      “Horn and Crawford are fighting at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas this Sunday, June 10.
      Coverage of the card begins at 10am (AEST) but the headliners are expected to walk to the ring around 12.30pm.”

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