I really hate her, I’ll think of a reason later

Diary of the last 30 hours

Yesterday all day long and all last night

Some asshole’s been on Facebook sharing godawful stuff of the lame and artless and women-hating kind about Jacinda Ardern. 

Now it's all kicking off.

This guy has been sharing it day after day like he’s really quite into it. Who could it be? Slater? No nothing like that, it’s someone close to Judith Collins.

Take a bow, close confidante and soulmate of 41 years, Judith Collins’ husband. 

The media are upon her with their microphones: what's the story, you into this at all? 

She tells them: Those are not my actions and I would have not done that. I am sure you will understand that.

It’s an interesting device she likes to use to wipe her prints out of the picture, because if they did indeed understand that, would they be needing to ask?

Anyway, having established that it's not a thing she would ever, ever do, and somehow deflecting the question would you be happy to see someone else do it you know like they said it happened in Dirty Politics,  she is happy to report that notwithstanding persuasive evidence to the contrary her husband is one of the least sexist people and he's married to me - how could he be sexist?

Heads up, philosophy scholars: I believe we have an honest to god situation where it’s correct to call this begging the question.

What is the implicit proposition here? I'm not sexist 

Is it entirely proven? Respectfully submit not, your honour. 

Let's come back to that in a moment, there’s some more airy batting away of the questions to be done first.

Her husband is an adult, she explains. 

He'll make his own decisions and you know, let's put it this way: I don't have to answer for him because I haven't been able to control him for 41 years.

And: 

If you've got the secret to how you can control a man who's 64 years old, used to play a lot of rugby and was a policeman, good luck, let me know.

This is a bit of a rhetorical hoon round the outside of town with your mates in the car with the windows down when what you’re really saying is: boys will be boys 

As defences go, it’s more or less meaningless.

Possibly it’s deflecting cover for: 

I'm not sexist but I will quietly laugh when we're at home at night and he passes me the iPad and shows me this stuff and oh that’s a good one. Angry. Don’t want to make her angry. Heaven forbid we make her angry LOL

Does it matter? It matters a bit. We’re talking about someone who proposes to lead the country or, in her words, take it back.

Rolling your eyes theatrically and saying rugby boys will be boys looks like a willingness to let abuse and incivility get a wave through, and maybe that’s no big deal but have you noticed the way that's playing out in other countries right now? No thanks, really.

There's also the question of control. If she really can’t keep her pooch on the porch as she protests, does that mean she does not in fact possess the rigour she once did that saw three entire cars crushed, and which was going, she assured us, to be confronting  the virus at the border and firmly commanding it to slink back onto the Air India plane?

Let’s not kid a kidder. After 41 years, nothing is a surprise. One possibility is that this stuff offends her deeply. Another is that she's cool with it. 

Perhaps in drawing our conclusions we could be guided by observations recorded in Dirty Politics by fabulist Nicky Hager, who is a fabulist, but who also keeps turning out  to be entirely right about everything.

There's a point of view I’ve had expressed to me by National party MPs with great conviction  that she’s a lightweight, she’s got nothing. It utterly mystifies them that she's Prime Minister. Reduced to a boys will be boys aphorisms that comes out as how dare she.

The Facebook posts seem to be of a piece with that. Bit tragic.

Oh but wait, the spokesperson for what-we-were-all-thinking-in-1978 is clearing his throat for NZME. We’re running the risk of losing our sense of humour, and calling it aggressive misogyny is simply ridiculous. The Nats are just making good use of humour.

Oh really? Some things that purport to be funny come from a school of humour that sees a joke as a kind of  verbal  equivalent of malicious rucking.

But humour that doesn't remotely resemble the person you purport to be joking about fails a crucial test. Mark Twain called it the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

If it really bears no resemblance, if it really doesn’t capture anything then all your joke is saying is, in the words of the old song: I really hate her I’ll think of a reason later.

In my favourite dystopian comedy Idiocracy, America 500 years from now is in a packed movie theatre hooting and guffawing at an unchanging shot of a pair of naked buttocks.The number one movie was called Ass, the narrator says, and that's all it was for 90 mins. It won eight Oscars that year, including best screenplay.

Don’t give up, you boys. Maybe the memes might keep for 2520. 

3.55pm

Results of a highly relevant poll are in.

4.15pm

Oh and it looks like I've been sent someone else’s text message. This is an outrage. Who do I talk to about a resignation?