Jamie-Lee Ross, Sarah Dowie, Tracy Watkins and the hypocracy of #MeThree

Well there I was happily beavering away on a blog post about the current crop of democratic hopefuls for the 2020 US election when I was rudely dragged away from my labor by the sound of squabbling from the "children's room".

So I rose wearily from my desk, padded down the hall and gingerly pushed open the door to the a place I have come to dread: New Zealand politics.

Immediately the smell of urine and feces assaulted my nostrils while the shrill cacophony of sobbing and snarling dug into my ears. And the sight that sprawled before me was little better; it was clear there had been another incident in the special needs class and its was time for clean up in aisle five.

And there is a lesson to be learnt for those considering having an extra-marital affair with a co-worker and that lesson is: don't f**king do it!

Its all right there in the lyrics to Kenny Rogers 1977 hit song Daytime Friends (Nighttime Lovers) where he sings:

And when it's over, there's no peace of mind
Just a longin' for the way things should have been
And she wonders, why some men never find
That a woman needs a lover and a friend.

Call Ross a misogynistic and brutal lover all you want but it takes two to tango, or make the beast with two backs, and both parties to this tsunami of political diarrhea are responsible for what its become. 

Ross, obviously, brought this into the public space when he strapped on his recordings of him and Simon Bridges talking treason and ran screaming into a press conference like a jihadi suicide bomber to detonate his payload in front of the cameras in spectacular fashion.

 And amid the screams and body parts raining down we find out that whats at the core of this is less one man concerned about his party, or its leader, being so filled with corruption that its leaking out at every orifice but instead its a far older chestnut, that of a being cut out of his own slice of the greasy money pie so in revenge he turns stool-pigeon and starts ratting out the other criminals.

Then of course we have Simon Bridges and his relentless stuff ups over the leaking of his travel records, which is still not actually attributable to Ross (and Nationals own report said so) but what the heck, let just go with it.

But the trigger for all this is his and Sarah Dowie's illicit relationship which, like more than a few work place relationships, could not bear up under the strain or the guilt of cheating and lying (to their partners of course, not the public, as politicians have no qualms about that) and splintered into the inevitable backbiting, name calling and one particular toxic, and illegal text from Dowie to Ross to "kill himself".

Well she almost got her "wish" but instead Ross decided to go rouge and publicly expose the National party, and Simon Bridges in particular, and in doing so has given the Coalition government a free pass for as long as it takes to clean this mess up.

Whats clear of course is that there is still more to this story that what we are seeing but its also clear that its most likely 99% petty personalities and bitchy backstabbing in the wake of a broken love affair and all the garbage has just been funneled through the already toxic sewer that is the National party to produce something akin to Kedal Jenners politics fail than what this is being presented as (that being news we really need to know about).

However, as much as Ross was a deluded idiot who let his own scumbag ambitions override what little political judgement he had and Dowie should have listened to Kenny (or just remembered the old adage of "don't screw the crew") before going over to the bitchy side of the force (because both of these twerps were more than happy to play hide the salami while also playing married with children) the real hypocrite of this story is the media and specifically Tracy Watkins of Stuff who while writing repeated stories decrying the behavior of MPs has then decided to paint Ross as the monster and Dowie as some sort of innocent victim in some sort of vicarious #MeToo moment (making it really #MeThree I suppose) rather than hold to some sort of journalistic integrity in her reporting.

Watkins more than implies that Ross is the political Machiavelli who has maneuvered and manipulated the situation to his own advantage with lines like:

Let’s not pretend this isn’t exactly what Jami-Lee Ross wanted. He’s spent the summer lying low, and his return to Parliament was always on the cards. When he did stage his comeback, he needed to take ownership of his role in destroying a number of innocent parties, and offer a genuine apology. That apology fell far short of acceptable and he’s back up to his old tricks.

Reading that we can only imagine that Jamie-Lee Ross as some sort of Scooby Doo villain who,when his dastardly deeds are exposed, would saying something like "...and I would have got away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids!" when exposed by her obviously brilliant journalistic exposé.

Bravo Tracy, bravo.

Her entire piece in the Sunday Star is well within the realm of the worst of tabloid journalism and not only implies that Ross is playing the mental health card (because its clear to her what a real mental health crisis is and what is fake) but also doing her best to cast doubt on the fact that it was Dowie sending the "killer" text that set this whole avalanche of corruption, ego and avarice in motion (because we always let other people send hate filled (and illegal) texts from our phones) in a some of her worst reporting to date.

But the articles ultimate in hypocracy lies in this line here which, I hope, can only have been written as some form of semi aware ironic meta to how airing ones dirty laundry in public is never a good thing.

 

He did it in the full knowledge of the law, and how the media has to work.

Tracy: if Ross did what he did in "full knowledge" of how the media works so also did you write your many articles covering this abortive distraction to actual political matters in "full knowledge" of "how the media has to work", as if political reporters have to give legitimacy to these kind of sleazy soap opera antics because what else could they do. 

Seriously, if you want to take the moral high ground it looks a lot better if you wash the filth off your own hands first; filth you collected by giving this story as much traction as its has gotten by relentlessly covering it as you have, not by focusing on the actual mess the National party has gotten into but with your relentless exposure of gossipy aspects of this story, turning it from the grubby, but all too human sideshow it was (because in the end both Ross and Dowie are human too and workplace relationships happen) to your own personal #MeeThree crusade via your depressing slide into tabloid muck-raking.

You don't get to have the moral high ground when your writing this kind of swill and failing to do your job, if you want to be a gossip columnist thats fine but stop pretending this is politics and not you playing town gossip.

Also for the love of Kraff save the identity politics for where they are relevant, turning marital infidelity into a cheap morality play for the victim generation is just exposing your own agenda as a far less than objective journalist and more as a partisan agitator playing rumor monger. Surely there were other stories to write about or have you gotten so close to those you cover that your now unable to report just the facts.

Such behavior makes you look not only as an ultra hypocrite but also like someone who would be better suited as the high school drama queen, the journalistic equivalent of Helen Lovejoy, constantly saying "I'm not one to gossip" before unleashing your own moral take on actions which are not morally defensible, those being Dowie unleashing verbal and emotional violence via text, just as mach as Ross blaming his behavior all on his mental health.

If Ross gets hung out to dry by this, and he will in time, so should Dowie, she's not a victim here and in a week where the real political stories are Simon Bridges cabinet reshuffle being sideswiped, accidentally or not, by Ross's return or Kiwibuild's obvious failures (because a $650,000 house being considered "affordable" in NZ is screwed up and Labours defense of this shows their willingness to capitulate to unregulated market forces when the whole point of government is to balance such things with regulation for the benefit of the people) then your ongoing reporting and focus on one aspect of this one story is not part of the solution its part of the problem!

But this is not the first time Tracy, and her ilk, have gone down this path and its going to be a focus of mine this year to point out how bad the media in NZ has become when covering the beltway in Wellington because if this is what being a political journalist has become then we are better off reading the gossip on the various blogs that covered this in detail and skipping the mainstream media all together.

In the end Watkins has done herself no favors because if this is her best then we could just as well be reading David Hartnell.