Andrew Bolt - is he a credible journalist?

[Sky Pilot]

what I like about Bolt is his ability to flesh out issues that bother the looney left and draw admiration from the conservative right. Anyone who can do that either through fact or fiction has my admiration. Onya Boltmeister

This post couldn't have summed up the far-right's MO any better.

Far out!

[The Bowler]

Bolt, and indeed all journalists, needs to be accountable for claims and statements he makes. I think Journalists have a responsibility to report in a factual unbiased manner, then let the masses determine their opinions based upon the credible information provided them. signing off, the idealist.

[dedja]

WADH ... again

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opin ... 6512500933

BARACK Obama should not have been re-elected president.

That he was tells us elections are now decided less by heads than hearts.

Is America better off after four years already of Mr Obama?

More Americans - 7.9 per cent - are unemployed. The country is even deeper in debt, now totalling a frightening $16 trillion. Mr Obama's foreign policy has left America, if anything, weaker.

Mr Obama, who four years ago promised such a transformative presidency that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal", has plainly failed.

Yet he's back in the White House, and Republican Mitt Romney, the successful businessman and governor, is not.

Worse for the US, he's back with the same deadlock in Congress - Democrats controlling the Senate, Republicans the House - and a smaller mandate.

What the hell happened?

In a victory this narrow almost anything can be said to have made the difference: Superstorm Sandy, the blame-Bush hangover or whatever cause you want to push.

Mr Obama should have been swept away so comprehensively as to make such if-buts pointless.

Bigger shifts help him, signalling the rise of a new kind of politics that could leave the US weaker, and us, too.

This election confirms the suspicion that the politics of seeming is trumping that of achieving.

That what counts most in politicians is how voters "identify" with them, rather than what they do.

It also suggests that a culture of entitlement is eating at a culture of achievement.

At this point Opposition Leader Tony Abbott should start to worry, since even here a Prime Minister's vicious speech on alleged misogyny counts for more among many women than the waste of billions of their dollars.

What dragged Mr Romney down was, first of all, a ferocious ad campaign attacking him as a rapacious venture capitalist from a privileged white rich background. He was depicted as not a man who could understand voters' concerns.

He was also attacked for having a "woman problem".

Mr Obama, though, was a man white leftists could vote for and feel moral. America's minorities could assert their own identities simply by voting for America's first black president.

And vote for him they did, in big numbers. About 9 per cent of voters yesterday were Latino, and polls suggest they vote Democrat by more than three to one.

Black support for Mr Obama is even more overwhelming - about 96 per cent, according to exit polls.

This hurdle will only get higher for Republicans. Although whites still make up two-thirds of the US population, minority groups this year for the first time produced more babies.

This is a reality Mr Romney identified in a damaging video, leaked during the campaign, of a private speech he gave to donors in May.

Speaking of his rich white father, Mr Romney said: "Had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot of winning this."

He added: "If the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African American voting bloc has in the past, why, we're in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation."

But this is not just a problem of racial identification. The Latino and African American voters are also likely to be the kind of people with their hands out for benefits.

Unemployment among African Americans is more than 14 per cent, twice that of whites. One in 10 Latinos is jobless.

This makes welfarism even harder to wind back for any president who needs to win an election.

And that was the other problem Mr Romney identified in the secret video.

"There are 47 per cent ... who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it." Mr Romney said.

"They will vote for this president. These are people who pay no income tax ... I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility."

And true, nearly half all Americans live in households receiving a government entitlement.

How do you start to wind that back and slash the deficit, as Mr Romney threatened, without alienating more voters than you can win?

This is the US's great challenge, and its future strength hangs on making the rational choices it yesterday dodged.

[Sky Pilot]

A great article by Bolt. Calls it like it is and the fact that lefties are disturbed by it means he has hit the nail on the head and they don't like it.

[Q.]

That he was tells us elections are now decided less by heads than hearts.

Bolt complains about partisanism...

...then writes a partisan article.

WADH!

[Gozu]

Poor Bolt, Obama's victory was comprehensive too. Sour grapes but his troglodytes will lap it up.

Good to see the US starting to make a move back towards the Left.

[Sky Pilot]

Wall Street tanked this morning. Down 301 points I think

[Sojourner]

Another area that Mitt Romney slipped up in, was that remark about the 47%, of people that rely on a government benefit, - many of those people in the US are actually veterans who copped their disability during wars fought on behalf of thier country. It did a massive amount of damage amongst groups that represent Veterans in the US also.

Re Wall Street and so on it will be interesting to see what strategy Obama goes forward with to reduce unemployment and underemployment. The issue is the Debt Ceiling and the savings programme to repay the debt. To pay the debt they have to make cuts in spending, yet they need to stimulate spending at the same time to keep the economy from recession. The debt ceiling would not be a problem if the economy was in good shape and taxation revenue paid down the debt, but the problem appears to be the reverse, hopefully a war with Iran wont be the next solution to stimulate the economy...

[Jimmy_041]

Unfortunately, with a Republican majority House, he's going to be hamstrung again
4 more years of stalemate because the House controls the purse strings
Can you imagine another 4 years of what we've got here.
Whoever wins the next Federal election - please give them a majority

[The Sleeping Giant]

Then I guess they can all share the blame if the US economy really goes bust. LOL

[gossipgirl]

surely no one believes the looney rants of the brain washed Bolt. no one could be that gullable surely !!!!

[Sky Pilot]

I suppose you mean "gullible" huh.

[dedja]

LOL, this is hilarious ... Bolt squealing like a stuck pig about Mark Latham, claiming he distorts the truth and selectively uses quotes to support his arguments.

Such as ... What shocks me is he has invented or deceptively edited quotes from me to give them the opposite meaning

Oh the irony Mr Bolt ...


http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opin ... 6526002108

HELP! I'm being stalked by a bizarre former Labor leader with issues with the truth.

Double help! I live in a country where such a stalker nearly got made prime minister.

I should have known better about Mark Latham.

In fact, I once did.

As I wrote: "I may have worked twice for the Labor Party but I was astonished to find a man as crude and brutal as Mark Latham being taken seriously as a politician."

He himself boasted "I'm a hater" and as opposition leader proved it, abusing the Liberals as "suckholes", prime minister John Howard as an "a ... hole" and columnist Janet Albrechtsen as a "skanky ho", proving Prime Minister Julia Gillard is merely continuing a Labor tradition of abuse and division.

It ended badly, of course.

Devastated after losing the 2004 election, Mr Latham huffed out of Parliament and wrote diaries which seemed to smear half his Labor colleagues and betray the confidences of the rest.

It was a vicious get-even.

But then he reinvented himself as a columnist, writing for the Financial Review as well as The Spectator until storming out of that, too. He also yells on Sky.

Because he wrote pungently, I praised his writing style and invited him on The Bolt Report. We three times shared lunch.

Here's how Mr Latham described our almost-friendship in the Financial Review:

"Think of it as ... the mutual respect one finds in a worthy adversary ...

"Ten years ago we were like a pair of ideological alley cats, clawing at each other's credentials ... "

But now I blushed to read I was "a noticeably civil person" with an "underlying calmness", a "libertarian" who "focuses relentlessly on argument", preferring to "accumulate debating points rather than rant". Indeed, "it is a long while since this man has lost a debate".

I wish I could tell you to trust Mr Latham's opinion of me, but, sadly, I wouldn't trust him at all - nor trust the political machine that made him its leader.

Just three months after describing me as a Sophocles by the Yarra, Mr Latham writes I am in fact a "right-wing media fanatic", "specialising in wild allegations, conspiracy theories and the politics of smut", who "loves to repeat his false allegations".

I am "morally empty", lacking "courage" and living in a "strange, tortured world" of the "dark, freaky recesses" of my mind.

That Mr Latham can lurch so abruptly from admiration to the vilification suggests there's a profound flaw in his judgment or something is not screwed down in his mind.

But, more ominous, this Mr Hyde transformation also seems characteristic of the Labor Party he recently led.

What's infuriated Mr Latham is I've argued Ms Gillard acted unethically in helping to register a slush fund for her then-boyfriend under the deceptive title of the Australian Workers Union Workplace Reform Association.

Mr Latham is also upset that I criticised his shouting on Sky News, where he abused commentator Chris Kenny for suggesting Ms Gillard had a duty to inform authorities after learning her boyfriend and client committed fraud.

Mr Latham bellowed that only a "flint-hearted Tory" would shop their ex-boyfriend and Mr Kenny was up to his neck in a muck-raking conspiracy.

On reading my response, Mr Latham rang to rant and accuse me of making "100" false allegations about Ms Gillard. After 10 minutes of this aggro I twigged.

Was he planning to quote for publication what I'd naturally assumed was our private conversation?

"Yes," he said.

I told him this was unethical and hung up.

Since then Mr Latham has sent me a string of abusive and, in my opinion, deeply deceitful emails which he's also put on the Crikey smear site, claiming to identify some of my 100 allegedly false claims.

What shocks me is he has invented or deceptively edited quotes from me to give them the opposite meaning. For instance, he claimed I'd falsely accused Ms Gillard this month of being "in charge of the conveyancing" of the house her boyfriend bought in part with money from his slush fund.

In fact, my full quote reveals I was actually reporting the denial: "Gillard says she did not know her boyfriend's frauds, did not profit from them, was not in charge of the conveyancing file". Note: not.

And for months I've insisted "Gillard did not do the conveyancing".

This is not the only example of Mr Latham making things up to have me say the opposite of what I did.

Most offensively, he claimed: "(Bolt) was far more convinced of the need for a Royal Commission into the AWU matter than the need for a Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse."

Again, I'd said the opposite: we "should have on balance" the child sex inquiry, but "perhaps we should to clear the air" have another into the AWU scandal.

The point is not to show, poor me, I've been slimed by Mr Latham.

It is to show how quickly a former Labor leader will stoop to abuse, smears and patently false claims to destroy even a political opponent they thought decent.

I said "former" leader, right? Or is Mr Latham a symptom of Labor today?

[Gozu]

Latham's articles for Crikey destroying serial pedant Gerard Henderson were hilarious.

No longer have a Crikey sub so not sure if these are in there but he's too sharp a mind for the likes of Bolt.

[GWW]

I wonder how this might go - http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andr ... on_sunday/

[Sky Pilot]

I wonder how this might go - http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andr ... on_sunday/

I think the Bolt interview with KRudd should go down well. Rudd will be well rehearsed and will probably go for the jugular if Bolt wavers or spurts out an innaccuracy and conversely I'm sure Bolt will make Rudd look like the maniac he is when he attempts to be condescending and avoids answering the questions.

[Leaping Lindner]

Can anyone help? I'm trying to find a link to Andrew Bolt's scathing article on Murdoch getting a $800 million back from the ATO, and the fact that the ATO aren't contesting it. He must have written one surely, being the bastion of good and common sense that he is.

[Psyber]

Can anyone help? I'm trying to find a link to Andrew Bolt's scathing article on Murdoch getting a $800 million back from the ATO, and the fact that the ATO aren't contesting it. He must have written one surely, being the bastion of good and common sense that he is.

Was it a legitimate and legal tax refund?
If so why would it be an issue so long as Murdoch did pay any tax he was legally required to pay.

I've taken on the ATO a few times about their speculative assessments and had them climb down quickly when stood up to, and clear grounds for the challenge put up. Mind you none of mine were over more than about $20K.

On the other hand, as I've said several times on this site before, I think our tax rates on very high incomes should be increased.
(My challenges were back in the day when you didn't need to be earning a lot to hit the 47 cents in the dollar bracket.)

[DOC]

Just watched the last episode of Shaun Micallefs 'Mad as Hell".

Andrew Bolt asks Tony Abbott a question and the reply is in his usual broken down simplistic style.

Micallef" Who does he think hes talking to, an idiot? Oh wait"

[Gozu]

That was a cracker of an episode. Like Micallef I too was cracking up when he was comparing Abbott's speech patterns before and after the election and said "Now here is Mr Abbott before the election" and the footage they put up was of a puppet talking indecipherable gibberish