« On the pathway to happiness | Main | Tim Blair retreats »
March 08, 2003
The selling of Bob Carr
Two portraits of Bob Carr. This one, A premier performanceand this one, The pretentious populist(subscription required.)
In the former we have a driven politician with a lot of self-control striving to control the media and using public relations to prevent any negativity from surfacing. So this particular story is controlled--it's a selling Bob Carr story--the enlightened liberal intellectual in politics bathed in the light in the hill is the image that is being presented for our consumption.
Is it spin? Contrast it the latter portrait. This is one of the politician as a leader of a regime out to win at all costs. It is so swept along by the media-driven law and order campaign that it is willing to both constrain civil liberties undermine the independence of the judiciary by shaming magistrates into meeting police and community representatives in order to bring their judgements into line with community expections.
Image versus reality= disenchantment. The 'tough on crime' stance is more than the tactics to avoid being outflanked on law and order issues by the Coalition. I suspect the Carr regime is premised on politicians as the authoritarian guardians of the state who keep things tightly locked down whilst keeping the administrative wheels turning.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at March 8, 2003 06:46 PM
Comments
Tim Costello nailed them cold yesterday with the Green's gambling policy launch. Carr, the defender of "law and order" has opened a pandora's box of petty and higher crime. Wads of Pokiedollars are destroying communities from within, with the LibLabs egging on an industry that already boasts 10 percent of the world's machines.
Posted by: ausyankee at March 8, 2003 10:21 PM