Gillard smashes the Misogynist

[slartibartfast]

Best I've seen her perform.

[slartibartfast]

Gillard wins a verbal stoush, and maybe an election too

To use a modern phrase, Tony Abbott just got “owned”. He was utterly torn to shreds by the finest performance Julia Gillard has ever delivered on the floor of the House of Reps.

Mr Abbott was perfectly within his rights to put forward the motion that speaker Peter Slipper should be immediately dispatched. Most Australians feel likewise. But the words Mr Abbott chose to deliver this message were not only vicious but monumentally stupid beyond belief. Who are his advisers - the Sydney University young liberals?

Here is what Mr Abbott said: “I must allude to the vile anatomical references to which this Speaker appears to be addicted in his text message… Should (Gillard) rise in this place now to try and defend the Speaker, she will shame this parliament again… And every day the prime minister stands in this parliament to defend this Speaker will be another day of shame for this parliament, another day of shame for a government which should already have died of shame.’‘

Let’s replay that last line one more time for emphasis, as they often do on talkback radio.

Abbott wants Slipper sacked. So he said:

“And every day the prime minister stands in this parliament to defend this Speaker will be another day of shame for this parliament, another day of shame for a government which should already have died of shame”

Can you believe Tony Abbott used that phrase? Can you believe, after every drop of water that has flowed under the bridge since Jones’ ill-advised speech to the young libs, that the would-be Prime Minister of Australia still thinks it fitting to poke further fun at the death of the sitting Prime Minister’s father. Can anyone believe that?

Tony Abbott has hardly been deafening in his condemnation of his good mate Alan Jones in the aftermath of Shamegate, but did anyone but the most rabid leftie ever dream he’d be dumb enough to use the “died of shame” phrase in anger against the government?

First he distances himself from Jones. Then he pinches his vile phrase!

Anyway, the PM struck back with lethal force not seen since the Night of the Long Knives. Her manner was brutal, and was a strong reminder of why so many saw her as a natural PM-in-waiting.

Here are some of the more choice statements the Prime Minister made in response:

“The government is not dying of shame, my father did not die of shame, what the Opposition Leader should be ashamed of is his performance in parliament”

Ouch. Nowhere to hide from that one. And this:

“I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man, I will not. Not now, not ever.”

She also said (and excuse us for not getting some of this precisely word for word as we were caught off guard in a noisy newsroom):

“What i won’t stand for, what I will never stand for is the leader of the opposition peddling a double standard, a standard he has not set for members of his own front bench.”

and:

“The leader of the opposition can do something himself. He can apologise for standing next to signs saying Ditch the Witch.”

and in a delicious moment:

“Now he is looking at his watch (which Abbott was) because apparently a woman’s spoken too long.”

then, back to the original subject matter:

“This parliament today should reject this motion and the leader of the opposition should think seriously about the role of Australian women in public life and society because we deserve better than this.”

Long story short, what we saw today was the PM fired up as never before, with a brilliant (seemingly) off-the-cuff retort to the dumbest, most cynically-worded motion imaginable.

Tony Abbott got the shellacking he deserved, not only undoing all the image-shaping work done by his wife Margie last week, but quite likely also burning the poll surge that went with it.

With form like this, not to mention an economy which today jumped three ranking places to be the 12th biggest in the world, Gillard looks like the sort of politician who might just win the unwinnable election after all.

www.thepunch.com.au/articles/gillard-wins-a-verbal-stoush-and-maybe-an-election-too/?from=scroller&pos=1&referrer=home&link=text

[matt]

Oct 9, 2012 21:53:26 GMT 10 slartibartfast said:

Best I've seen her perform.

I wont watch it because they don't have subtitles which is unfair.

[slartibartfast]

Why on earth do you need sub-titles? I can understand every word.

[volk]

Slarti, commentators from diverse facets of politics are viewing yesterday's events very differently (as demonstrated on the morning television programmes). Just another day of boring politics that will hardly be remembered within the month!

[chequeredflaggg]

Labors and slit-eye Gillards vile campaign against Abbott has FAILED.

check latest Newspoll...

[caskur]

I was embarrassed for Julia Gillard. She came across as super bitter.


The strain is getting to her!

[caskur]

Katter's speech on ABC was better than both those bombs, Abbott and Gillard.

All this crap isn't running the country, you dullard!

[slartibartfast]

Oct 10, 2012 8:01:54 GMT 10 chequeredflaggg said:

Labors and slit-eye Gillards vile campaign against Abbott has FAILED.

check latest Newspoll...

What newspoll has there been since yesterday?

[Deleted]

Even Mark Morford is sitting up and taking notice of Julia Gillard....



From SFGate.com

Why won’t Obama step up?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 7:21PM - Tuesday, October 09, 2012

IS THIS not the plea? Has this not been our innermost wail, our collective hew and cry when we watch Obama sort of meekly, sort of halfheartedly go at it lo these past mostly so-so, only occasionally encouraging, but oh my God they could be so much better past few months/four years? You bet it has.

Because oh, what fun it wasn’t to watch in sort of jaw-dropped disbelief as Obama let opportunity after opportunity whoosh on by like a sweet softball from heaven during that first debate, countless chances to unleash some devastating intellectual whoop-ass all over Mitt Romney’s oily head and wooden heart, not to mention his endless falsehoods and pathetic open threat to giant talking birds who help children learn to read.


Lookin’ tired. Lookin’ listless. Needin’ some balls-out fire.

Theories abound as to Obama’s reluctance, inability, outright blindness when it comes to seriously throwing down in F2F encounters. Maybe it’s because he’s an introvert. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t really enjoy that kind of gloves-off, high-pressure combat (unless, apparently, he’s playing basketball with the Secret Service). Maybe it’s because he has no stomach for badass mud-slinging, and is far better suited to calmly thinking through his points before articulating a savage counter offensive that actually contains a semblance of truth.

Or maybe we should simply join with little Sasha Obama in wondering why the hell her dad was acting like such a pussy on national TV.

So we scream and throw things at the TV. We shake our heads and sigh in frustration. Knowing Obama is so much more intelligent, conscious, awake to the world than Romney makes the heart hurt, causes consternation and even mild panic. It seems so easy! It seems so obvious! Why doesn’t he nail it? Why doesn’t he jump down Mitt’s lying throat with a wink, a dazzling statistic and a 20-megavolt cattle prod?

“Barack!” we want to wail. “Look! It’s YouTube! It’s Australia’s fiery prime minister no one in America has ever really heard of, Julia Gillard, effortlessly kicking ass all over her sexist conservative counterpart! And it went viral in, like, 20 seconds flat! Mr. President! That’s how you do it, OK? Look! Please?”


Julia Gillard eviscerates. Obama could learn.

Alas, it might not help. No matter what you make of Obama’s tepid performance, it reminds us of a tragic design flaw those of us on the left have been living with since the impossible glory highs of 2008: this has been, unfortunately, the Obama we’ve always had. Solid, impressive, coolly respectable, articulate to a fault, but not really up for a white-hot, blood-boiling beat-down right when he needs to bring it most.

After all, this is the guy we all thought would roar into office on a delirious wave of eloquent cool, shake the place to its core and remake the White House into some sort of awesome 18th-century European salon packed with radical ideas and inspiring redirections, and instead has basically replaced the stemware, brought in some live jazz and put a basketball court where Bush’s inflatable kiddie pool used to be.

This is the guy who had an army of world-class photographers, biographers, journalists, historians and philosophers clamoring to record every gesture and detail of his historic march to the White House, only to sit on the sidelines this time around in sort of shrugging, bloom-is-off-the-rose resignation, an admission that it’s really all just a wobbly, fairly thoughtful, sometimes impressive, often lopsided, hugely flawed sort of Kindle Fire of an administration, when we were all hoping for an iPad 3.

Do not misunderstand. I am no turncoat. I’m still a dedicated advocate. Obama has achieved remarkable accomplishments. He did nothing short of restore America’s respectability across the globe, stabilize a free-fall economy, advance women’s and gay rights, sort of reform health care, and push through a rather stunning list of progressive legislation. He’s a masterful president in many ways and right now, with the notable exception of Hillary (or, for that matter, Bill), there’s no one who could do it better.

Hence, we shall not dwell in pits of negativity for long: The guy is going to win another term. Romney’s little post-debate poll bump has already faded and he’s coasting on nothing but a whole bunch of not very smart people thinking for a few days that he might not be quite as inept, incompetent, and Bush 2.0 as they imagined, even though he is.

But there’s a vital difference. The first election, Obama won on the sheer force of propulsive, electric momentum fueled by his intellect, charisma, how wonderfully not-Bush he was, all coupled to the wild-hewn fantasy that at least some of the radical changes he promised were going to come true. A few did.

This time, he’s going to win on sheer gut instinct. Not his — ours. He’s going to win because no matter what little bump Romney enjoys in a handful of polls, no matter the sad truism that Obama just won’t bare his intellectual fangs and go full throttle at the GOP’s homophobia, racism, misogyny and appallingly awful economic agenda, he has been able to build a beautifully wrought foundation of rock-solid energy lo these past four years.

It’s the reassuring feeling that he’s got it, that when it comes to pulling the trigger on Osama, finally supporting gay marriage, or responding appropriately to nearly any global crisis you can name, Obama’s intellectual acumen hooks right into the still-incredible sense that the man actually has a functioning soul, and you just know: the lights are on. He’s got it under control. There’s tremendous sense of competence where we need it most.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Romney radiates the exact opposite vibe, that he believes half the country is a bunch of whining losers, that he might just be a bit too creepily Mormon for the fundamentalist Christian base to stomach, that he has yet to offer up a single radical or interesting new idea anyone can identify, and that he values his stable of trophy horses more than anything you possibly care about.

Hell, at this point, we’ll take every advantage we can get.

blog.sfgate.com/morford/2012/10/09/why-won%e2%80%99t-obama-step-up

[Salem]

Oct 10, 2012 7:18:22 GMT 10 volk said:

Slarti, commentators from diverse facets of politics are viewing yesterday's events very differently (as demonstrated on the morning television programmes). Just another day of boring politics that will hardly be remembered within the month!

Agreed. I remember more firey speeches from her than that. Pretty dull and boring. For those that said she 'kicked his arse', um, WHERE? All she said is I won't be lectured on feminism from Abbott. Pretty standard statement. Didn't Ellis make a similar one on Q and A this Monday gone? Dull, boring standard House of Reps stuff. I thought she was quite uninspiring and dull, considering how firey she can get. It was like she felt defeated.

[slartibartfast]

Not by the classic look on Abbott's face!

[pim]

Not forgetting the look on Julie Bishop's face as well

[spindrift]

As if she was waiting for the opportunity to kick Abbott's right in the nuts....and he copped the full boot..

[sonex]

A comment from the ABC readers site.

"Tony's giant wrecking ball has begun it's return on the same trajectory"

[garfield]

www.canberratimes.com.au/national/letters/socalled-gender-war-is-a-battle-gillard-cannot-win-20121012-27img.html


So called-gender-war-is-a-battle-gillard-cannot-win

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is where she is because of an ability and a willingness to play politics hard, very hard.

It was edgy stuff to roll Kevin Rudd, and the leadership of the Australian Labor Party has been hers in the manner of a somewhat tainted, but still intact, chalice.

The so-called ''gender war'' - which has turned the Australian Parliament into a worldwide spectacle - represents a misjudgment. Gillard's familiar hardball has been ratcheted slightly beyond what can be dissipated into the political noise, and her leadership will find no prospect of clear air ahead.

The extremity of labelling the Leader of the Opposition a ''misogynist'' is quite different from making passing references to vaguely misogynist sentiments, and none of Gillard's colleagues want to climb over the wire - so to speak - into the firing line of indefensible and grave accusations; for there lies a ''no-man's land''.


Once vitriol is allowed to supplant decent restraint and truth, anyone can be targeted capriciously and gravely. Labor voices have been pressed by the media to join the shrill chorus, but instead they back-pedal to safer ground, while still maintaining the fiction of support for their leader's stand.

There is, as well, a point where the electorate recognises something ugly, and recoils; and if Gillard thought that dropping the ''M bomb'' was just another iteration of a successfully tough persona, she will soon find out differently. The chalice in her hands is broken, and the glint from the cracks is visible from a great distance.

[slartibartfast]

Real women disagree.

[garfield]

;D


GREENS Leader Christine Milne accused Julia Gillard of hypocrisy over her accusations that Tony Abbott was a misogynist, after a derogatory Twitter attack against her by a Labor senator.
Admitting the Greens had made a deliberate decision to stay out of the gender war between the government and the Coalition, Ms Milne admitted the PM undermined her own attack against Mr Abbott as being sexist last week by protecting Peter Slipper. And she warned the PM she would now be forced to stamp out sexism in her own party.

Ms Milne accused Labor senator David Feeney of a sexist and derogatory attack after he tweeted a series of pictures of the Greens leader with captions describing her different emotional states.

"If you're going to call it out you have to call out sexism on all sides, regardless of who is responsible," Ms Milne told Sky's Australian Agenda program yesterday.

Ms Milne said the debate over the past week had diminished the parliament.

"We decided we didn't want to get dragged down into it all," Ms Milne said.











What a f#cking idiot Gillard is ;D