Tips and Murmurs: Bad optics … political dirt … fine people on both sides

Oh great, this again As is the rule for a blockbuster sequel, it’s the same, but somehow even dumber. During the brutal 2018 Victorian state election campaign, Labor dirt units got a lot of mileage out of opponents’ old social media posts.

Posts that were undoubtedly crass but in some cases very clearly ironic and usually quite old surfaced in the media and offed a Greens candidate and a staffer.

Clearly pleased with this success (and resolutely forgetting that it can and has been turned on them) Queensland Labor appears to have gone back to that well, jumping aboard a campaign against a tweet.

The Greens’ South Brisbane branch secretary (using an anonymous account) tweeted an article in which Labor’s Jackie Trad describes the Greens as “obsessed with themselves. By way of commentary, the tweet added a quote from 2004 movie Mean Girls:

The quote appears to be a parody of what Trad was saying about the Greens, not expressing a view about Trad herself. Clumsily executed, but clearly a movie quote.

Regardless, Labor has doubled down on the attack, with MP Terri Butler tweeting at Greens Senator Larissa Waters regarding (now stick with me here) a photo she once took with someone who defended the Mean Girls tweet.

The move is disingenuous, smacks of desperation and, once again raises the question, “why would any young person ever run for a political office?“. We could go a step further and ask, why would any young person even engage with politics?

Fine people on both sides Over the weekend, the ABC weighed into the story of the American brothers facing 20 years in prison on terrorism charges with a truly bizarre piece. Michael and William Null have been charged with providing material support for terrorist acts over an alleged plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

The ABC had previously engaged with the brothers for Foreign Correspondent, and, for some reason, the public broadcaster felt it was important to remind readers of this fact in quite remarkably sympathetic terms. The Nulls were part of a “militia” counter-protesting a Michigan Black Lives Matter protest (because BLM protests are “often destructive” the piece informs us):

When some of the militia members started hurling abuse at the protesters, William and Michael Null stood close by, in an apparent attempt to ensure things didn’t get physical.

The Null brothers didn’t seem like the kind of people interested in instigating violence against anyone, no matter how angry they were about their God-given rights.

Try to imagine the response if someone accused of aiding terrorism where the putative motivation was, say, radical Islam received this kind of coverage.

Not a good look(ing glass) In what appears to be a great lack of foresight, footage of a British parliamentarian — apparently Siobhan McDonagh — has been widely shared, showing her on the floor of parliament cleaning her glasses with her face mask.

This is perhaps not as gobsmackingly dangerous as it looks — the mask is primarily for the protection of others, though it still does protect the wearer. Still, seems like McDonagh should have stopped and considered the optics.

That was then, this is now Peta Credin, July 2020:

Surely it’s not too much to ask people to wear a mask when they’re shopping, or on public transport, or otherwise in close proximity…. In Victoria, we’re in this mess — this second lockdown — because the premier let us all down and bungled quarantine. Other than voting him out of office, if wearing a mask helps us get our freedoms back sooner rather than later, then a mask is the least of our worries in Melbourne.”

Peta Credlin, October 2020:

To be fair, she didn’t say people had to wear them properly.