Tim Blair

Schoolmates eh!

Isn't that a form of networking?

Don't the political parties of the left and further left rely on "networking" to reinforce (and at the same time whiteant) their own positions.

Networking in the wider world is essential for the smooth running of.......everything. It is always a good idea if you know who the person you may be employing, appointing or refereeing for a position. Even to the extent of "a mate of a mate of a mate".

How many degrees of seperation do conservatives need before they can be considered worthy of any appointment? Sheesh.

Please, Tim.

Goldwater knew when it was time to cut Nixon loose. Loyalty is (or should be) to an ideology, not to mates.

revealed: flint was at university with howard

another reason why australians hold journalists in the same regard as no-win, no-fee lawyers

So, Uncle Milk, you'd drop your friends for The Cause?

I've no doubt that the Illuminati are somehow involved in this. Along with the Freemasons.

Yes, it's all coming together now.

Wait, I can't think aloud anymore without my tinfoil hat.

^Don't foget those evil zionists, its all part of the plot for global domination via our broadcasts wait!, ive said too much.

Andrea,

If my friends were as accident-prone, and as completely unacquainted with this strange concept "impartiality", as Prof Flint has shown himself to be...

Good grief, I'm not talking about reporting people to the secret police for criticising Mao in their sleep. I'm talking about their fitness to hold public office. These positions are not the personal gift of heads of govt for their friends. Howard can reward them as generously as he likes when he puts together his Christmas-card list. But when he's appointing people to supposedly independent regulatory offices, something other than "vigorous conservative partisan" should be a criterion. Stacking is bad when left-wing parties do it (Ref: "CHRETIEN, Jean"). It's also bad, believe it or not, when right-wing parties do it.

If the Left were simply condemning a Howard appointee for reaching conservatively-oriented decisions, I'd tell them to jump (c/f the storm in teacup over Howard's appointments of Ian Callinan to the High Court and Michael Jeffrey as Governor-General). Flint has gone beyond that. He consistently makes it obvious that he's in it to win the game for his side. Let Prof Flint employ his polemical talents as editor of Quadrant, or somewhere else where they're suited.

"I'm not talking about reporting people to the secret police for criticising Mao in their sleep. I'm talking about their fitness to hold public office."

Why didn't you say so in the first place?

Conspiracy is not the issue.
Some of the issues are
(a) whether that trumped up toadie Flint has acted appropriately. The apprehension of bias alone is sufficient for disqualification,
(b)whether Howard appointed Flint for appropriate reasons, upon appropriate grounds & in accordance with due process, irrespective of whether Flint was the wrong appointment(again),
(c)that the Telstra/2GB arrangement contravened at least the spirit, if not strictly the technicality of the 'cash for comment' requirements, by design & with the imprimatur of the ABA;
Don't deflect by reflecting upon conspiracy theories. Whether Howard & Jones had the same mother is irrelevant. The issues are as above.

While at uni I had a brief fling with Mark Latham. Does this make me:
. an ALP conspirator
. a party hack
. a party animal
. sleazy and displaying a lack of taste
. all of the above?

8|

Conservatives are nothing if not thorough.

Conservatives are nothing if not thorough.

Its just as well David Marr is completely free of ideological bias....

Danna Vale was a big help, wasn't she?

But it's ok becasue they're conservatives. You lot would be one of the first to jump up and down, if for instance, there was a letter of support like that between David Marr and Bob Brown.

Well, narkynark you forget to add "one very lucky person".

I was at university with someone once and I only hope they will become famous or notorious enough to warrant my revelation that this occurred. Actually, I think I passed that guy, you know the one - in the aisle at the shops once; does that count.

"The apprehension of bias alone is sufficient for disqualification ..."

Wow, Addul! I can see what culture your notions of jurisprudence are coming from!

nb Wasn't that well-know pillar of objectivity Phillip Adams head of the Australian Film commission? Any "apprehensions of bias" there?

Anyone who believes that the loathsome flint has anything to contribute to freedom and integrity of the press in australia should stand in the corner with a dunce's hat on.

Funny isn't it? When we from the Right get one of our men into a position of power in a media qango, the lefties can't wait to tear him down.

There's only one problem: the Right believes in freedom, the left doesn't. Therefore, our people can be in positions of power and be expected to act with propriety, the left's people cannot be relied upon not to advance their fatuous worldview. Of course, lefties know this. They cannot understand that some of us actually want to kkeeep the system working properly by not advancing any particular agendum.
Hence, you can always rely on a right wing judge to determine a case according to law, and not, like Kirby J, according to what the law "ought to be" in the minds of a few pseudo-intellectual Balmain basket weavers.

Yeah, "the left" are really behind this one. Like that well known commie rat, John Laws.

Crikey! I despise the Oz left and its media manifestations. And if this sort of thing happened with leftist and a Labor govt in office, I'd be spewing too.

What's happened with Flint is indefensible. (And I reccomend that American Webmistresses who don't know about the Oz political scene refrain from commenting lest they look silly)

When the right defends Flint on the basis of ideology, it necessarily abrogates loyalty to transparancy and - this is an important concept I believe - the truth. Indeed, such defence undermines any moral authority a rightist has.

Left and right actually cease to matter when any ideology becomes more important than the truth. Each wing has perpetrated atrocities in their extreme manifestations.

Toryhere's sentiment that the right believes in truth as a universal principle would come as a surprise to my Auschwitzised grandparents, folks who suffered under Franco, comfort women enjoying Japanese rightism, Abyssinians enjoying Mussolini's forays, Chileans suffering Pinochet's rule, and Former Yugoslavians enjoying the rigtist "truths" of men like Milosevic and Tudjman.

The left has also produced its fair share of horrors which I don't need to list here. We all know them and abhore them. I simply write this message to remind about the dangers of partisanship without reason and ideology without a commitment to truth.