I received this in the in-box this morning (from a reader who wishes to remain anonymous) and having just read the post in question I thought that I could not have said it better myself so I thought why not just share it with our readers? They could all use a laugh on a Sunday morning
This is classic – have you read Jeremy’s latest post explaining why he will not be running for Parliament?:
If anyone’s wondering why I’ll never run for parliament – there’s your reason.
(Well actually Jeremy, I’ve never wondered about that)
It wouldn’t matter how much my views had changed, any youthful indiscretion or internet quote that could be taken out of context and misrepresented, would be, and it wouldn’t matter how transparent the motives and how ultimately irrelevant the attack – it’s the personal smears that get remembered, that stick.
(Jeremy, your views are often extreme and hammered down people’s throats – why wouldn’t it be relevant to bring them up? Oh, just “youthful indiscretions” were they?)
I get enough of that abuse as a minor blogger – you can imagine how much would come back to bite me if I ran in an election.
(Bloody oath it would!)
Particularly on a lefty platform that would threaten the interests of, say, commercial media proprietors. It would be interesting, but ultimately not worth it, to see just how effectively they could use their influence to destroy me or anyone else who hadn’t been careful their whole life not to say or do anything controversial.
(Yeah, you’re so important the media would set out to “destroy” you. Or maybe they’d just point to your whacky, weirdo and somewhat suspect Internet behaviour and say “you wanna vote for this bloke? Go ahead”)
Cheers Comrades
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 
Can you imagine how long it would take, for his opponents, to remind us ALL of this lad’s indiscretions over the years ? We thought Pauline was bad. I am fairly certain, everyone he has ever denigrated, by this young man, would thrive in their chance for a bit of payback ?
I would have thought, that would put pay to any aspirations to a political career pretty quick smart wouldn’t it ?
PS !
I note with a chuckle, that the post you linked to, has been removed ?
No My link was bad try it again Folks
There are three reasons why Jeremy will never run for Parliament:
1. Andrew Bolt
2. Andrew Bolt
3. Andrew Bolt
Close but Not quite on the money Ray
it: (in no particular order)
1. Melbourne Lefty
2. Anonymous Lefty
3.Boltwatch
4. Grods
5.The Blair Bolt watch project
6. Pure Poison
7. The AFL
Yes GD I forgot about that one 😉
I will not be running for Parliament. I don’t want to be “smeared” – any more!
Btw, Iain, I’m nominating this for:
FUNNIEST. POST. OF. THE. YEAR.
Yours and Jeremy’s.
Go for it Ray 🙂
Much as I laughed at Jeremy’s hubris for imagining that anybody would even consider the option that he would run for parliament, I do see his point. Not his point, but the point that from this decade, all future pollies will be under far more intense scrutiny of their earlier years, and previous careers, than ever before. To top it off, if they were rather active politically, chances are there would be a record of every word they ever wrote or spoke.
So while Jeremy’s self-recrimination for his blogging past is comedic, it is also understandable. We no longer live in a world with only a daily newspaper and an evening telecast to inform us of local and world events. Do we want young, nascent politically minded people to hide away in Young Labor or Young Liberal, or do we want them to be active in the new media, beyond what the party platform condones?
A statute of limitations exists for financial debt, why not for political aspirants? With the new media we run the risk of denying potentially excellent political candidates because of some minor aberration in their earlier years. I’d much rather a choice of former young activists than the dull selection of party hacks we now have.
I certainly get where you are coming form GD, Heck there are enough things that I have done on the net that I have subsequently regretted for me to understand the argument. However I suspect that the more that the digging into peoples on-line past goes on the less that any revelations about people’s indiscretions will matter, especially when it is associated with the limitations upon any redress for malicious lies and misinformation posted on the web.
Heck there are enough things that I have done on the net that I have subsequently regretted for me to understand the argument.
Can you please describe the 3 worst ones in detail?
Firstly welcome to the Sandpit Fred Phillips 😉
you ask:
If you are not a troll then what I do now will be what matters rather than trying to reheat issues from the past.
If you are a Troll then you probably already know about my internet faux pas and my citing any of them now is superfluous.
Fred doesn’t ask for much, does he? Comes onto someone’s blog for the, er, first time, and asks the host to spill the beans on himself. That’s like walking into someone’s home unannounced and asking, “Please tell me everything you’ve done wrong in your life”. So, is Fred a Jehova’s or something, here to cleanse your soul? What a jerkoff. I’d just tell him to f___ off, Iain, but it’s your
homeblog.He’s on moderation Ray 😉
“Give him enough rope” is apt here I think 😉
… and he’ll hang himself? Hope so. ‘Dead Fred’ sounds good to me.
Fairly thin-skinned for someone who likes to dish it out, Iain. Needless to say, I’d be devastated to be banned.
Of course if anyone ever brought up any of Jeremy’s past internet behavior it would be a smear while his referals to past comments by Joyce, Abbott, Wallace etal are all “commentary” and no more than that.