The Nasty National Party once again

The graceless, boorish comments Paul Henry made on tv are the sort of thing that, if he made them somewhere else, would simply leave you thinking, 'that guy's a dick.' You would leave it there. After all, is there really anyone who cares what Paul Henry thinks about how people should look?

But what is especially objectionable is that TVNZ has allowed itself to be used to bully and humiliate someone. This is not a conversation in someone's living room: it is a national platform from which someone belittled and abused a person who had done nothing wrong.

The misuse of power is awful. In front of tens of thousands of people, a television anchor has used his camera time and his audience, to administer an intentional humiliation. A schoolyard taunting. On their own, the comments are just impolite and ugly. It is the misuse of power, the thuggish, ganging up and picking on someone he thinks is different, that is unacceptable.

Henry, of course, is a National Party candidate. The National Party blogs are all praising him of course. Because National has never met a bully it didn't like.

Under National, TVNZ is a vehicle for abusing anyone different.