It’s not me, it’s the others
Life is perfect when everything is someone else’s fault, writes David Slack.
Most of us, caught with our hand in the cookie jar, do badly. Like: freeze. Or try to hide the evidence. Or babble. Or be so very, very sorry.
How good would it feel to be able to walk away from it all with your hands in your pockets, whistling? How good would it be to talk your way out of anything at all?
How do guys like that even do it? And why do we keep voting for them? Let’s answer the first question and pretend we didn’t hear the second.
Tony is a celebrity speaker and former prime minister. A report this week said Tony and his good friend the President of America had gone to war before it was necessary. They didn’t have any sort of plan to deal with the consequences, and the whole fiasco had made things far, far worse.
You’d think after he’d read two million damning words about a disaster that was essentially down to him and one other egomaniac he’d be feeling quite awful. But Tony was having none of it.
He said: ‘‘I believe we made the right decision.’’ He said: ‘‘The world is better and safer.’’
He talked about hindsight, as though nothing was wrong. Two million words had already evaporated into thin air. Hundreds of thousands of people who hadn’t needed hindsight, who had said it was a terrible idea before it began, had evaporated too.
If there was a black row of dominoes that ran all the way from his dodgy dossiers to Isis, he couldn’t see it, no sir.
Don’t get angry at Tony, think for a moment how much easier your life might be if you could act like everything you ever did was blameless and beyond question.
Try it now: drive down to the petrol station. Take the hose out of the bowser. Spray it all over the show. Grab a squeegee, give the concrete a good scrape. Boy, hard work cleaning up a forecourt isn’t it? Go inside and take a load off! You’ve earned yourself a coffee.
Oh look! It’s all gone up in flames! Tap the manager on the shoulder! Interrupt his 111 call if you have to! Tell him how disappointed you are that your big-hearted free springclean has had such unintended consequences. You might leave him a tip to show him what a classy guy you are.
John used to buy and sell money. Now he’s a prime minister. Each political trading day is a new day. What did he say yesterday? Already forgotten. You should forget, too.
Whose fault is it that houses
Think for a moment how much easier your life might be if you could act like everything you ever did was blameless and beyond question.
cost so much? Depends. What day is it? Tuesday? Oh, then it’s the stupid Auckland Council’s fault. Wednesday? Reserve Bank. Thursday? Stupid Auckland Council again. Friday it might be Andrew Little.
People should stop acting like the Government can do things. That’s dopey. Get a load of this guy saying we should give ourselves a 40 per cent price collapse. How you going to do that, Einstein? Build tens of thousands of Gold Coast apartments? Yeah right. Look, he used to be a Reserve Bank economist, what would he know? Get back to us when our developer friends think it’s a good idea. Speak of the devil! Look who’s on the phone! Tell you what: ask me that question again, would you?
Paul is an architect. Brian is an engineer. Steve is a builder. Clive is a building supplies merchant and James Hardie is not available for comment. There are more than $20 billion worth of leaky buildings in this country and believe it or not, none of it is Paul’s fault or Brian’s, or Steven’s or Clive’s or James Hardie’s. 20 billion, 30 billion, who can say how bad it is? But never mind, they’ve talked the talk, they’ve walked the walk and walked away and the stupid council is paying. Sweet deal, eh?
Where does the buck stop these days? The boss is the guy in the back seat with the openneck shirt. If you’re wearing the tie, you’re the driver. You can ask the boss why things have gone wrong, put a microphone in his face, but if you want an answer or some sympathy you should probably try the guy with the tie.