In Opposition, Everything New is Old Again

There are a few cycles in politics that apply regardless of party, ideology or sometimes even border. One, is that Australian voters at both a state and federal level, always tend to give governments one last chance. There are many examples of elections where the government seemingly should have been thrown out, but managed to scrape back in.

Another is that elections are generally lost, not won. Most election results are a rejection of the loser rather than an endorsement of the winner. One of the most obvious examples of this was when the Coalition, under the leadership of John Hewson, lost what was considered the unlosable election in 1993. The Melbourne Herald-Sun already had the front page printed: “Hewson In Cliffhanger.” The coalition’s “Fightback” package was one of the most detailed set of alternative policies ever put forward by an opposition. The incumbent Labor government was only too happy to make the Coalition’s policy the focus of the campaign rather than their own stewardship. Most people agree now that it all fell apart for Hewson’s campaign on A Current Affair when he couldn’t explain how much GST would be applied to a birthday cake. Three years later, with a reheated John Howard as leader, the Libs went to the election promising little more than that they weren’t Paul Keating and won comfortably. In fact, the most memorable thing John Howard promised in that campaign was that a GST would “never ever,” be a part of his policy. That turned out to be one of those “non-core” promises. Labor clearly knew that Keating was that year’s election issue when they ran ads saying, “You don't have to like him, but you've got to respect him.” They were probably hoping for a similar result to the 1990 election (the one-last-chance result for the Hawke government) when Bob Hawke went begging for second preferences from Green voters.

Of all the elections I’ve ever paid attention to, the only result I can think of that was actually an endorsement of the winner rather than a rejection of his opponent was Barack Obama’s win last year, and even then he had the advantage of widespread disgust with the incumbent and an opponent who seemed determined to abandon a lifetime in the sensible centre and appeal exclusively to bizarro-world.

Another of these political cycles is one I’ve only just begun to notice but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s true. All political parties spend their first term in opposition trying to be the same party they were during their last term in government and hoping that voter remorse will bring them back at the next election. It never works, but they all seem to do it. Whether it’s denial or a misguided loyalty for former leaders, I don’t know, but following each election, we hear members of the defeated party explaining that, “we didn’t get our message across well enough,” or, “people didn’t understand our plan.” It’s not until the second consecutive defeat that they realise that they did get their message across, the people did understand it and said No!

It happens everywhere. Following the US Congressional mid-term elections in 2006 where both the House and Senate went to the Democrats, some Republicans (well, Ann Coulter anyway) suggested that it was actually a good result for the Republicans because people would be reminded of how crap the Democrats were and the Republicans would stage a great comeback in 2008. We all know how that turned out.

However, something interesting is happening in the Liberal party this time around. An all-out war has broken out between those who seem to think the party was on the right track all along, and others who want the party to progress. Malcolm Turnbull is already the party’s second leader this term and despite having survived a spill motion on Wednesday, he may well not lead the party to the next election. At the heart of the matter is Turnbull’s broad support for the government’s emissions trading scheme, which has angered many of his coalition colleagues. They want him abandon that support but Turnbull has refused to adopt the ‘I am their leader, I must follow them,’ approach.

Despite being the most obvious choice of party leader, Turnbull was narrowly defeated in the 2007 leadership ballot by Brendan Nelson. That was probably fortunate for Turnbull. The first leader after the defeat was always going to be somewhat sacrificial. Turnbull was better off biding his time, but when Brendan Nelson called a leadership ballot in September 2008, Turnbull ran and won by a slim margin. It was perhaps typical of Malcolm Turnbull’s impatience that he ran as early as he did and upon winning, set about leading the party from the front and making the changes in the party that don’t usually come until the second term of opposition. As a result, his leadership is now being viciously attacked from within his own party.

Turnbull’s leadership has appeared shaky for a few months now, and during that time the heir apparent has been Joe Hockey. However, aside from time-filling media gossip, Hockey hasn’t been considered an immediate contender – more of a natural replacement for the current leader. But now it has been confirmed that there will be a leadership spill on Tuesday morning. That puts Hockey in a bind because although he is seen as a popular choice for the leadership, who would want it now? The answer is Tony Abbott who has announced he will be challenging. I really don’t see Abbott as a leader. He has always been the one diligently toeing the party line on Lateline or Q and A but not an actual policy maker. Then again, to those who want their leader to follow the party, I guess that makes him the natural choice.

I still think that Malcolm Turnbull is the most likely person to become the next Liberal prime minister but after this year, it might take a John Howard-like exile and resurrection before it happens. One thing is certain: the Libs have no hope of defeating Kevin Rudd while they put all their energies into defeating Malcolm Turnbull.

Chris Uhlmann has excellent analysis HERE.

A visitor

Meet my new friend. He was sitting on the rails outside my work this evening. Kookaburras aren't uncommon around here, but it's pretty rare for one to come as close as this. He's a pretty young one and was probably waiting for his mum.

Checking out the renovations.

A much more appropriate perch for the king of the bush.

The Bonus Discs - Paul McCartney

Many albums now come with bonus DVDs. But how special are the special editions? This sidebar looks at whether the bonus discs are worth paying extra for.

Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
The main program here is Between Chaos and Creation, a 30 minute doco about the making of the album which shows Macca and producer Nigel Godrich speaking frankly about some of the creative tensions that went into making the record and their determination to make a great album.
Extra bits are the video for Fine Line with 5.1 sound, a nice little clip for How Kind of You which will be fascinating to music nerds and perhaps a little boring to everyone else, and three rather pointless instrumental versions accompanied by animations of the line art from the album's booklet.

Audio: LPCM Stereo throughout, Dolby 5.1 and DTS on Fine Line
Worth paying extra for? Yes

Memory Almost Full (2007)
A perfunctory selection from the "secret" show at the Electric Ballroom last June focusing on the new songs plus the opening number, Drive My car.
The presentation is excellent with mercifully few cuts to the audience.
Also includes the videos for Dance Tonight and Ever Present Past but curiously not Nod Your Head.

Audio: LPCM Stereo
Worth paying extra for? Yes, but not worth buying the album twice.

THE McCARTNEY YEARS (2007)

This is the mother lode. We can quibble over the few clips left off but there probably wasn't physically enough room on the discs for them all. The 5.1 remixes are exquisite and are only in DTS. The inferior Dolby format is only used for the audio commentaries while the music is in DTS for surround and uncompressed PCM for stereo.

There is the occasional head-scratching moment, like why they added a new video for Band on the Run that makes it look like the song is by the Beatles and not Wings. But there are also moments of explanation. One might wonder why they only included a handful of numbers from Rockshow instead of the whole film. The answer is revealed when watching those few tracks. Although great in its day, Rockshow just doesn't stand up well against modern concert films and while a few more songs might have been good, two hours' worth might not have been as involving. Do please give us the whole of Unplugged one day though! And ironically, since this disc isn't labelled as a concert film, they give us a complete, uninterrupted concert in the form of Glastonbury.

The bonus features are many and varied. A big highlight is Paul's commentaries on the clips. He makes no apologies for things that were a good idea at the time, like Say Say Say, nor does he make any excuses for things that were never a good idea, like London Town. Lovely song, pants clip. One feature that isn't advertised is the fact that Goodnight Tonight, Baby's Request and Fine Line are multi-angle clips that allow you to switch between two different versions of the same clip.


Highlight: Glastonbury
Feature: * * * * *
Extras: * * * * *
Audio: LPCM Stereo, DTS 5.1

WINGSPAN – Paul McCartney (2001)

Post-Beatles Anthology and post- Britpop, the time was right for a reappraisal of Wings. For too long, Paul's 70s band had been associated with much of the rest of the bad taste of that decade. Paul was as responsible as anyone else for this, with his Beatles-dominated live shows featuring just a very small handful of his 70s output.

This extended version of the TV documentary that accompanied the release of the Wingspan CD is a family affair. Paul is interviewed by daughter Mary in increasingly bizarre locations. The TV studio and kitchen table are fair enough, but later we have Paul chatting while strolling along a beach, driving along a country road, walking through a warehouse filled with flashguns, doing a painting and finally riding off into the sunset. The program is as much a eulogy of Linda as it is a history of Wings, but the official telling of the story doesn't mean it glosses over the embarrassing stuff. Paul speaks candidly of Wings' Spinal-Tap-like carelessness with drummers and guitarists (although there is no introspection as to possible reasons), the misguidedness of Hi Hi Hi and the infamous drug bust in Japan. There is a sly sense of humour as well. In listing Wings' achievements, the opening montage refers to “almost” eleven tours.

Wings music is used to great effect in embellishing the story, particularly Kreen-Akrore which has finally found a purpose thirty years later.

There is one glaring omission in Wingspan and his name is Denny Laine. The doco makes no secret of the fact that it is the Paul and Linda story, but the only member of Wings not named McCartney to stick it out from start to finish gets just two mentions in the entire show. Three, if you could the use of Time To Hide as incidental music. Even Henry McCullough gets more airtime. Whatever bad blood there may have been between Paul and Denny since the end of Wings, he deserves better than this.

Extras are out-takes from the interview, which include impromptu performances of Picasso's Last Words, Mrs Vanderbilt and Let Me Roll it, two live songs from Rockshow (please release the whole thing), the video for Rockestra Theme, Discography and photo gallery.

Highlight: Rare live footage
Feature: * * * *
Extras: * * * * *
Audio: LPCM Stereo

Previously posted at Strawberry Fields and at Fishpond.

GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROAD STREET – Paul McCartney (1984/2004)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001FR552?ie=UTF8&tag=billablog-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0001FR552Are we sitting comfortably boys and girls? Then I'll begin....

Paul is on his way to work one morning when he gets a call from his manager Bryan Brown. Paul had entrusted the master tapes of his new album to an ex-crim whom he was giving a second chance, and now they have both gone missing! And if they don't find the tapes by midnight, that leaves the way open for their company to be taken over by the nasty Wrath-Bone industries.
Paul tries to go about his normal day; recording Yesterday, making videos, rehearsing. But by the end of the day, the stress has got to him and he begins hallucinating. So he pops in on his old mate Ralph Richardson for tea and surrealism. But will he be able to save his tapes, his friend, his company and his faith in human nature before he wakes up and realises it was all a dream?
Oops, did I give away the ending? Never mind.

As a piece of cinema, Paul's grand folly of the 80s is abysmal, but if you regard it as a 100 minute video clip for an album that really isn't as bad as you've heard, then it's a perfectly entertaining piece of fluff. In fact, if he had handed it directly to MTV instead of attempting a cinema release, it would probably be remembered a lot more fondly. Occasionally veering into “so bad it's good” territory, you will marvel at some of the woeful performances by what, in any other movie, would have been a very good cast. Watch for some gloriously camp overacting by a sound engineer.

If there's one area where Broad Street doesn't disappoint, it's the camera work. The film is beautifully photographed and this double sided disc has both the wide-screen and the 4:3 full-screen versions. The sound is listed as Dolby 4.0. It's a curious mix. Basically it's stereo, with the lead vocal in the centre channel and very sparing use of the rear channel. Rather than doing two separate transfers of the movie, they might have been better off putting the extra effort into a proper 5.1 mix. Still, it does provide another level of misguided eightiesness to the whole thing.
Two trailers provide the extras.

Highlight: Wanderlust
Feature: * * ½
Extras: *
Audio: Dolby 4.0

Previously posted at Strawberry Fields.

Obama’s Own Twisted Logic

A comment in Barack Obama’s speech at the Fort Hood memorial shows that he can pander with the worst of them.

"It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy."

Damn right it’s hard to comprehend. We don’t even know what the true motive was yet so how can we possibly comment on the comprehensibility of it?
Then things got worse with the follow-up:

"But this much we do know -- no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. For what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice -- in this world, and the next."

Surely this is the kind of talk that prejudices trials. Not only do we have vague talk about “facing justice,” a comment deliberately designed to be whatever you want it to be, just as we had from W after the September 11th attacks, but we also have pre-emption of the Almighty’s view of the situation.

Obama certainly knows how to work to an audience and this was certainly not the place to talk about understanding what causes a man to snap. Be that as it may, it’s not much of a leap to interpret this comment as pandering to anti-Muslim sentiment. That’s bad enough on its own, but it’s doubly disappointing coming from a man who himself has faced prejudice because of his “Muslim name.”

All we know about Major Hassan’s motives is that we don’t know what they were. All further comment at this point is completely irresponsible. There was a lot of twisted logic that led to this tragedy. There is the twisted logic of victimising a man who volunteered to serve his country just because of his religion. There is the twisted logic of sending the same man to the front line after he had helped dozens, perhaps hundreds, of his comrades deal with post traumatic stress and would have inevitably taken on some of that trauma himself. There’s the twisted logic of assuming that only those in active combat are really fighting the war. And there’s the twisted logic of assuming that because a man has a certain name or belongs to a certain religion, then that must have motivated his crimes.

I am not for a moment seeking to minimise what he did. Nothing excuses his crimes, but we can look at what might explain it. Obama the thinker surely knows this, but instead chose over-simplification. Twisted logic is everywhere.