Does it say more about me or them?

Watching the last week or so of politics in NZ has been a strange mix of the perverse fascination of rubber necking at a car crash; moving quickly to a rather nauseating sense of being dirty by association.

It really has gone septic. Brash's initial floundering was bad enough, but the faux outrage from Clark since has been sickening. Keith Ng at Public Address does a nice precis of how things might have gotten to this point:

In this week's Listener, Jane Clifton called the (then-)prevailing understanding between Labour and National a system of "nuclear dirt-terrent". A charming and most useful analogy for explaining the steadfast stockpiling of dirt, but it also provides a good framework for understand how it came to fail.

1) Rationality
Deterrence is based on rational agents who make rational decisions. Frankly, not only do there appear to be a few rogue agents in the Labour caucus who are willing to exceed their authority, but the Labour Government as a whole has been looking increasingly unreasonable and out of control over the course of the year.

2) Self-preservation
Deterrence relies on everyone not wanting escalation. But in National's case, is escalation a bad thing: a) for the National? b) for Don Brash? c) for leaders-in-waiting?

3) Variable X
The best laid plans of mice, men and politicians often go awry. Though, in this case, perhaps someone should have seen it coming: Woman scorned; hell hath no fury, etc.

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I don't want to make excuses for Labour. They made innuendos that allude to things that they wouldn't want to say outright... because it would make them look like complete goddamn sleazeballs. They're out of control, and they really need to stop. For fuck's sake, just stop.

Sums things up rather nicely.

It is really rather sad that an issue that registers a big 'so what' from most sensible thinking NZ'ers can dominate TV and column inches to such an extent.

It is even more abject that I have watched, read and 'enjoyed' every bit of it.