HOBSON'S CHOICE, BRO

Top article by John Townsend, via Gareth Parker, in the Western Australian Newspaper:

Howard the least worst option to lead the ICC

What a dilemma.

John Howard versus Sir John Anderson.

One, Australia's self-styled leading cricket tragic who hit himself in the toe when he last bowled a ball in public and wore his ubiquitous green and gold as a reminder of the colour of the blood that ran though his icy veins.

The other, a Kiwi banker and cricket administrator who won plenty of friends on the sub-continent by describing Darrell Hair as an "appalling umpire" but who has been described himself as "not wearing his pomposity lightly" and, by Mike Atherton, as an "undoubtedly bumbling and ... incompetent administrator".

Comments

[Cam]

Tony, i don't see how this qualifies as a top article. To me it would be filed in the utter crap category. One level below Roebucks recent hysterical, skirt lifting, i hate white men diatribe.

A man who is Prime Minister of Australia for 10 plus year is utterly over qualified to be in charge of the ICC. It's like a local bank manager taking a new job as a 7-11 cashier.

This whole episode reinforces the favt that left wingers can't remove their emotions from issues and make rational decisions.

[Tony]

Cam,

I agree that Howard's prior experience as a polly qualifies him for the ICC; nor do I think that his lack of cricket experience disqualifies him.

JT agrees with that.

He also takes a shot at The Chucker, which is always a good sign.

He lines up Anderson.

His article is a strong contrast to Spanky's.

Yes, he is critical that Howard "used his very public love of cricket as a cloak of convenience". But that's something with which I agree and wrote so five years ago: Pair Of Scepticals.

It was unfortunate, lazy even, that he used the bog-standard cliché about Howard's bowling in Pakistan. But I agree with a large percentage of his article, despite the tone.

Maybe I am coming at JT's piece from the perspective of someone who reads all his cricket articles. He is very definitely not from the "I hate white men diatribe" school of thought.

[Russ]

This bowling in Pakistan thing is pretty harsh too. Sure it looks bad, but

1) the bloke was 60 odd at the time, the same as my Dad is now. Even ten years ago my Dad struggled to get his arm over his shoulder, or deliver a straight ball, when previously he could toss up little darts with ease. Howard has a nice high arm action, straight arm. It isn't bad, technically.

2) He is wearing a short, tucked in, sleeves down and buttoned. Pretty hard to bowl when the movement is that constricted. Now, the sensible thing would have been to roll the sleeve up, but still, let's see some of these journos in 20 years time, rolling the arm over in business attire.

[Cam]

Sporting journalists are notoriously left leaning, succumbing fully to the pieties of the day, making them gut wrenching to read when they stray off topic.

Generally they are regarded by other journo's as morons who deal day to day with other morons, so the sports journo at every oppurtunity has to try and prove his pc bona fides.

What got me steamed about this article was Townsend's shear reluctance to give Howard his stamp of approval. 'Least worst option', utter crap.

It's the first time i've read the guy so i wouldn't know if he 'had a dog in the fight' (thanks to Patard/Mel) on the Howard issue.

Possibly he was approaching it from the prole Australian 'all politicians are bad' viewpoint. I don't know and i'm not about to go through his archives to find out.

(Frank Langella gives an excellent portrail of Nixon in Frost/Nixon.)

[Big Ramifications]

Sporting journalists are notoriously left leaning, succumbing fully to the pieties of the day, making them gut wrenching to read when they stray off topic.

Generally they are regarded by other journos as morons who deal day to day with other morons, so the sports journo at every oppurtunity has to try and prove his pc bona fides.

Damn. Interesting call. They do tend to moralise a lot, don't they?

And when you aren't anonymous and you moralise on a public forum, the easy route to take is to let everyone know what a bang up, caring, left leaning person you are.

Helloooooo? This is the sports section. Not Lifestyle. Not Opinion. I don’t care who Wayne Carey is boning, so don’t farking write about it in the sport section, mmmkay? And double especially DON'T FARKING MORALISE about it.

This is how sports journalism should be.

[patard]

I'd like to see sportsmen respond to journalistic malfeasance like this.

[Cam]

These Gibson videos are cracking me up. I'm actually starting to like him.

[Lou]

Talking about poor journalism.... I don't care who John Terry tampers with, but almost every media outlet in England is wetting their collective knickers over his extra-marital love-life and now he's been sacked by Fabio.

It isn't even just the sports journalists all though they are in their typing furiously, it's everyone who ever wrote in a paper or online. This is just the start of their campaign to undermine any World Cup chance for the England's footie team. What a vulgar and hysterically funny bunch.

It makes the Aus journos seem refined in their approach to sports reporting.