Skinned Flint
Nothing has been so entertaining this week as watching David Flint squirm over the latest evidence that he has been an abject failure as the Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority. I don’t have much to say on the topic, but I wanted to catalogue a few of the descriptions of Flint that have been offered in the last couple of days.
…that scourge of the elites…
David Marr also did an excellent impersonation of the toffy-nosed prig on Triple J’s Hack program on Wednesday. You can listen to it online until next week.
The Professor turned bumbling and evasiveness into an art form…
…Now, come on, Professor Flint. I suspect that you do think the common masses are stupid but I do also think the cap of stupidity would sit very comfortably on your head at the moment.
…I made some mildly critical comment of the effete, pretentious, posturing Professor, that being Mr Flint…
I’ve just seen these interviews delivered with all the style of someone who seems to be rehearsing a vice-regal role for himself.
A crass inability to understand the statutory obligations that reside with him.
It remains unclear as to whether Flint also maintains equally credible belief in the Tooth Fairy…
But this is hardly surprising from this stiff lipped son of Empire…
Just because Flint is the sort of congenital moron who populates the conservative end of Australia’s political spectrum doesn’t mean that he can’t have an opinion on the media.
It gets a bit more than dodgy though when he’s left as the regulator – a bit like letting Dracula regulate the Red Cross. Luckily though, he’s decided not to regulate anything.
Which is hardly surprising given that he doesn’t even appear to be able to regulate his own brain. This is the inbred pseudo-aristocrat who was born with an entire silver service shoved in his mouth, who then has the temerity to write a book called The Twilight Of the Elites, where he does a pitiful job trying to savage those he calls The Elite.
The Elite, in Flint’s world, appear to have only one thing in common; they disagree with one, David Flint. He would have been better off calling it The Twilight Of David Flint’s Credibility.
Our Tool Of The Week would do us all a service if he not only resigned from public life, but from Australia as well.
(There is an excellent demolition of Flint’s “new class” elitism theory in the latest issue of Overland, if you’re interested.)
It does very much appear that David Flint, Alan Jones and John Howard have been caught in a tawdry threesome. Flint gets a plum job as a media regulator (which seems to involve writing streams of fan mail but not a lot of actual regulation), Jones gets a massive income through a cash-for-comment deal with Telstra, and Howard gets even more favourable media coverage.
I’m just waiting for the usual suspects to weigh in, telling us that Media Watch should be focussed on more important issues — like Michael Moore fat jokes and turkey props.
Update: This doesn’t sound good:
Communications Minister Daryl Williams told Media the Government continued to have confidence in the ABA Board. He did not take up an opportunity to also express confidence in Flint.
He confirms the Government is looking at a proposal to merge the functions of the ABA with the Australian Communications Authority, but will not say when a decision will be made.
Some observers see this possibility as a way Flint, whose term expires on October 4, could continue in his ABA role. A merged body need not be subject to the rules that say an ABA member may be re-appointed once only. (Emphasis added.)
Oh, yippee.
Having encountered Flint only once, at which time he struck me as displaying behaviour which appeared quite similar to those suffering from early intellectual disintegration, I’ve often wondered why this has never been raised by his interviewersm — politely of course.
His performance with the surprisingly teneder Kerry O’Brien, struck me not so much as a man “squirming”, Rob, as a man who didn’t comprehend that he should have been squirming. He possibly would have been squirming, of course, had not the gentle O’Brien avoided the needed follow up questions.
“Skinned Flint” … you stole that from me! Well you might have if I’d thought of it first.
Bugger! Smart arsed West Australians, you can’t live with ‘em and you can’t … well … you can’t live with ‘em! That’s why God in his infinite wisdom parked W.A. way over there where no one will notice it.