It has been fun watching National and its minions duck for cover, throw up smokescreens, attempt diversions and resort to slander and defamation in response to Nicky Hager’s book. I am not sure that the revelations will have an impact outside of political circles and a media that has heretofore treaded carefully around the Prime Minister and his key lieutenants, so am not confident that they will sway the upcoming election even if more unsavoury news comes out about how National plays dirty. Perhaps as the first in a one-two punch that has Glen Greenwald’s  presentation on New Zealand’s spying activities on Sept 17 as the follow up, Hager’s  revelations will stir voters from their complacency and undermine public confidence in John Key’s leadership.
That remains to be seen, especially since the All Blacks have started their season.
What I do think is that staff members of agencies mentioned in the book and assorted hangers-on and wanna-be’s who are part of or have links to the network of informants and dirt-mongerers that underpin National’s dirty tricks operations are bound to be running pretty scared. Â As such, they are the Achilles Heel of National’s dirty tricks operations now that they risk being exposed. Imagine if you are a staffer for a Minister or a corporate executive that exchanged information or money with Slater in return for favourable coverage or smears on opponents? Would you not see that the ugly head of plausible deniability would likely rest on blaming someone in a subordinate position who can be sacrificed in order to save the ship? Would it not by prudent to bail out early rather than be the sacrificial lamb?
Imagine if you are a local Tory candidate or some other useful blogging fool who fed information to Whaleoil’s network on the personal affairs of opponents in order to discredit or blackmail them in the hope of Slater giving you a positive plug, and now realise that your communications are in Hager’s hands (because it is pretty clear from Nicky’s comments that there is more in his possession than what is in the book). Would you not be scrambling through your email and other communications records with the dirty tricks network to see what damage could be headed your way? Would you not be concerned about your career or livelihood once the dishonesty and depths to which you stooped are revealed? Aaron Bhatnagar, Kathryn Rich and some minor Rightwing bloggers come to mind, but there are plenty of others.
Of course, it is the corporate executives and politicians that work with Whaleoil who have the most to lose, but before they do they can take down many others with them. Thus the rational thing to do is for the rats to abandon the sinking ship rather than go down with it. Assuming that the media does its job and delves into the revelations and implications of Hager’s book, the rats will be flushed out. That is why I anticipate much more amusement to come.
One postscript: What Left-leaning blogs do in NZ is no way comparable to what Slater does, nor is what he does politics as usual in a civilised democracy. Lefties may gossip obliquely about Righties’ private lives and may say nasty things about them in their blogs, but none that I know of, including those that are strident and hysterical in nature, resort to trawling the opposition gutter in search of salacious or embarrassing personal details, publishing privileged information, printing interest group press releases under false pretences and colluding with public officials and private firms to denigrate and smear perceived opponents. Â It is one thing to openly accept union money or to have party members blogging under pseudonyms in support of Left parties or causes; it is quite another to under-handedly pollute the political blogosphere in order to destroy people.
The irony is delicious. After years of Slatering the weak, the vulnerable, the defenceless and occasionally those who deserve it, Whaleoil himself has been Slatered. After all, Nicky got his information in a Slater type of way. But unlike the original, Nicky Hager’s Slatering of Whaleoil’s network was done simply by using their own words rather than secret tip lines, unethically provided (de)classified government information, private back channels and gossip columnist innuendo.
It could not have happened to a more deserving crowd.
PPS: Slater is now playing the victim, saying that he is getting threats and that his private stuff was stolen (irony alert). David Farrar (who may be hyper partisan but is is nothing akin to Slater in my opinion) is doing a bit of the latter as well. Slater is also saying that the emails from Collins and Ede were on gmail accounts so could have been from anybody. As I said above, the denials and diversions are in full swing. Can shifting blame and finger pointing be far behind? People who are subordinate to or associated with the key players in this scandal might do well to get out while their reputations are still intact.