re: re:lucas49 - brogden calls carr's wife..mail o
groundzero, You are also right on that one. Different times, different standards of acceptability I guess.
I always found Bob Hawke to be a bit too soppy in some of his more emotion-filled episodes, but each to his own.
I guess in many ways it depends on the mix of attributes, strengths and weaknessses ,that a particular person has as to how forgiving or accepting the public is of a display of his weaknesses.
In these days, anything that can possibly be interpreted as racist is usually interpretated that way by groups in the community, and he is just dreaming if he thinks he will escape scrutiny if he makes any statements that are on the edge or subject to any interpretation.
The guy is just better of doing something else is how I would look at it. Politicians are generally subject to a high level of scrutiny these days and whatever the reasons and curcumstances, this was not the type of comment he should have made in a circumstance where he could have been overheard by others.
This comment will almost surely be picked up by news services all over Asia and will likely be used to label all Australians as racist deep down inside that really view Asians as second class people. Gonna take a lot of effort to erase that impression and it will used at the bargaining table to gain consessions from us in a variety of ways. This is regardless of whatever you might say about the relativedegrees of racism, institutional or casual that is built into in most Asian societies. It is a very effective bargaining tool and useful to molding public opinion against us in the right hands.
At the very least, probably very and unnecessarily hurtful to Carr and his wife however it was intended, and however much alcohol he had to drink.
