BoltWatch

Dedicated to those who can tell the difference between A. Bolt and a nut.

Where Andrew Bolt's Deranged Polemic ... Gets What's Coming To It

Monday, August 27, 2007

Bolt 25/8: "Brisbane gives warming rally cold shoulder"
Megan from Brisbane writes:

The Lying Bolta Army in Action In Brisbane

Wow! That's a pretty big accusation to make against the contributor to Bolt's recent spray. But, unlike Bolt and his army of "true dis-believers", it is based in fact.

Bolt joyously repeats some outright lies about the attendance numbers at the walk against warming in Brisbane last Saturday. Lies? Thats a bit strong, isn't it? Surely Bolt's mate could have simply been a simpleton mistaker of fact?

No, sorry, it was LIES! You know, when you say something which you actually know to be false? You see, the close up photo of the 'panel' of Senators Bob Brown and Andrew Bartlett could only have been taken when there were still several hundred people there. I was there, and when they left the stage there were still at least 300 people at the Riverstage. "Allan" the lying useful idiot and enabler must have taken his first deceitful close-up photo at that time and his photo from the Grassy Knoll much later, when the crowd had dispersed, but Bolt has the later photo first. Look closely, can you see either senator on stage in the "Grassy Knoll" shot?

When the crowd started its march there were, indeed, about a thousand or more, that alone was evident from the sparse coverage on the nightly television news. It was a wet day in Brisberg and the 'Riverstage' grounds were sodden so people quickly dispersed before, during, and after the key speakers and entertainment.

Still, Bolt, like his proprietor, doesn't like letting the truth get in the way of an idealist spray. Andrew Bolt loves a good LIE over the truth anyday and he wants fools to believe he is a journalist. Luckily he never has to speak to real people to tease out a story, his army of trolls supply him with plausibly deniable anecdotes. Well folks this story is an undeniable lie. Bolt repeats lies. Ahh, feels good to be able to say it again and again with the new defence of "Truth" to any claim for defamation. Let's try it again: Bolt repeats LIES.

The best of this is that he could indignantly disown "Allan" as soon as it became apparent that a self-styled 'journalist' became aware that his source is a liar. That will happen when Iraq freezes over.

Bolt quips: "A media which can’t even count 150 people (or less), and tells you instead they numbered 2000, can’t be trusted to tell you much about global warming that’s not equally hyped."

I quip: An alleged journalist who can't tell you any truth about global warming, or the level of community concern about it, can't be trusted to tell you the truth about anything and should be openly mocked at every opportunity, as he so wilfully mocks others. It is vital to our democracy that he loses his job immediately.

BoltWatch: it would be useful if someone can send in a photograph of the actual crowd present at the Walk Against Warming.

And if anyone has a shot of any of the rooms in which Bolt has given a "speech" recently, taken, as the ones in his piece were, after most people have left, that'd be good too. Because apparently photos taken after everyone has left are evidence that no-one was there in the first place.

- posted by Jeremy @ 8:43 AM |
Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Bolt 8/8: "The stolen truth"
Bolt had to respond to the unarguable evidence of at least one "stolen" indigenous person, whose claim was upheld in the SA Supreme Court last week. But what do you do when you have to concede such a point? You find a scapegoat OTHER than the system you've been so bloody-mindedly defending. You run the line that it's the work of a rogue bureaucrat. Who's now dead.

There's an excellent response to the piece at Larvatus Prodeo - A Conveniently Dead Scapegoat.

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- posted by Jeremy @ 12:20 PM |
Friday, August 03, 2007

Bolt 3/8: "Doomsayers frothing at the mouth"
Ah, things are returning to normal. Yesterday's moment of sense and journalistic scepticism from Andrew Bolt has passed.

After being roundly savaged by his forum regulars after pointing out how flimsy was the case against Haneef and how dodgy the attempts by the government to buttress it, he's back to mollifying them. Those siding with Howard against Haneef are "the reasonable", he declares.

The article started off badly, as Andy sought to judge between the two sides (the Government vs everyone who's horrified by what they've done in the Haneef matter)
Points on both sides. Not all facts yet known.

Sorry? What "points" are on the Government side? What "facts" as yet unknown would justify the Government's treatment of Haneef? Would justify Andrews' incredibly incompetent and inconsistent prosecution ("He must go!" "He went - so he's guilty!")? Would justify the Government's legislation that gives the Immigration Minister such outrageously broad power that he can lock up any of the tens of thousands of visa-holders here at whim?

Well, no. Andy doesn't want to get involved in THAT debate. Instead, Andy wants us to think that the main "issue" is that some of the rhetoric against the Government was a bit colourful.
No, what’s really at stake is what kind of argument should win in these hysterical times: apocalyptic or calm?

...I’m only partly mollified even now, but if I needed any more incentive to give the Government the benefit of the doubt it’s been the yammering of its usual hyperventilating critics.

Who’d feel safe in tossing such a pack a bone?

Yes, according to Andrew if the Government does something outrageous, and it prompts scathing criticism, then the more scathing that criticism, the more he'll give the Government the benefit of the doubt. (Note: this does not apply to lies and innuendo about the Greens, which SHOULD NOT inspire giving them "the benefit of the doubt" - that dirty smear campaign's vehemence is just confirmation of its righteousness.)

In other words - the worse the Government acts, and therefore inspires the more stringent crticism, the more Andy's on its side.

Bizarre.

I also love his ironically self-unaware attack on "apocalyptic" rhetoric:
Sadly, the apocalyptic is now standard in political rhetoric among the global-warming generation and must be resisted as an insult to sweet human reason.

Well, sure. Like when a writer in a newspaper warns about muslims being about to (a) overrun and (b) destroy us. ("See Europe whilst it's there".) Oh, no, not like that.

Still, it's an imaginative and courageous defence. Even Andy can't find anything to say to defend the Government on the Haneef matter; so instead he has to resort to attacking its various critics. Not for their argument - he still hasn't got a counter to it. No, for the stridency of their polemic. Yeah, that should do it.

And just how much can the Government's critics' rhetoric absolve it of responsibility? Well, almost completely:
It’s for this reason alone, I suspect, that many of the reasonable will now side - however unreasonably - with Howard over Haneef.

Of course.

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- posted by Jeremy @ 8:47 AM |
Thursday, August 02, 2007

Bolt 2/8: "Haneef’s Chinese whispers"
This is a rebadging of an old feature on BoltWatch, "Andrew Bolt says something sensible". (You might not remember it; it's been a while since he's written anything that could conceivably qualify.) For in the same sense as Bolty sometimes agrees with the ALP (admittedly almost exclusively when it's bashing the left), there are times when BoltWatch agrees with its subject (usually when he's taken the blinkers off regarding the Howard government and rediscovers libertarianism).

Now, Andy's overall message on the Haneef issue isn't entirely one with which BW agrees - his angle is that the laws are fine, it's just that Kevin Andrews has made a hash of things. (We agree with the latter, but also have serious reservations about the massive power the Liberals' legislation gives to the Immigration Minister.) Consequently, his damage-control line is, if there's something wrong (and it looks like there is), then let's chuck a Kevin Andrews overboard in the hope that it'll save the Government.

As you'd expect. Anyway, that's not "Andrew Bolt saying something sensible"; that's Andrew playing astute politics. The "Andrew Bolt saying something sensible" bit is his post today on the emptiness of this Indian "investigation":
In fact, it seems that what we have here is just the Indian police repeating what they’d heard from Australian ones, who have since been unable to prove anything against Haneef.

An allegation isn’t made more true by two people passing it on to a third.

So let’s settle down.

I'd have called the post "Kevin Andrews' Chinese whispers", since it's about HIS attempts to justify himself, not anything Haneef has done, but the point's a good one for Bolt's readers to consider. And the way Bolt succinctly makes it, in that second-last sentence, is excellent. Circular claims (including "we must investigate this person because as a result of the fact that we're investigating them they look suspicious") is not evidence.

Who'd have thought? Eloquent logic from Bolt. See, he is capable of it, after all.

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- posted by Jeremy @ 1:38 PM |
Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Bolt 1/8 "You'd think it was Mighell's money"
Andy's cross that any ex-ALP figure could support the Greens:
Dean Mighell is kicked out of Labor for his foul language and tendency to pose as a union thug, and within months donates $120,000 of his union money to the Greens instead.

How does this benefit the members of his Electrical Trades Union?

Well, the Greens are actually concerned with workers' rights and won't sell them out just because the government runs a scare campaign on unions. So it'll benefit any ETU members who are actually concerned with their basic rights.

The real question is why are so many of the other unions still giving their members' dues to Labor?

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- posted by Jeremy @ 1:27 PM |

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