What a difference a few percentage points in the polls makes.

I’ve talked before about the intense, irrational personal hatred and enmity evinced by some in the National Party ‘family’ towards their former star MP Winston Peters. It is breathtaking to observe its vehemence. They bear grudges. Intensely.

Scratch some outwardly civilized, even quite-reasonable-on-other-issues Nats about Peters and you trigger an outpouring of hot yellow purulent contempt for the former Tauranga MP. In some cases, the reaction seems close to some sort of Pentecostal frenzy, or an epileptic fit.

They HATE him.

"It should be noted that Mr Slater deliberately published on his blog the details giving rise to these charges. It was part of his campaign to disclose publicly the names of people in whose favour suppression orders had been made in criminal proceedings in the District Court. His general modus operandi was to disclose information which would lead to a defendant’s identification. In sentencing Mr Slater, Judge David Harvey said this: Your {activity}, in terms of publishing the names of people who were subject to non-publication orders, was carefully calculated, carefully thought out and deliberate ... ." — Justice Harrison from Court of Appeal Judgement 9 November 2011 dismissing Cameron John Slater's application for special leave to appeal his convictions for eight charges of breaching judicial orders made under s 140 of the Criminal Justice Act 1985 (CJA) and one charge of breaching a statutory prohibition on publication under s 139 of the CJA.

And now, with Peters’ star rising in the pre-election opinion polls, some indicating his NZ First Party on the cusp of possibly returning to Parliament, National’s attack dogs, trojans and sympathizers in branches of the media (talkback radio particularly) are squawking for all they’re worth: desperately spouting personal denigration, abuse and pointedly raising ‘questions’ about this controversial politician. Timing is everything.

I’m all for free and open debate, and ‘savvy’ observers letting us know what they think and relating issues from the past (gosh, it’s what I aim to do here at ThePaepae.com) but some of what passes for ‘commentary’ about Winston Peters is nothing more than deliberate, fixated sledging of an experienced politician, former cabinet minister and deputy prime minister, a man who, any way you look at it, speaks for thousands of New Zealanders. His critics may have no personal respect for Winston Peters, but in my opinion they owe a duty of fairness to him and to those he represents.

National Party re-animated zombie and convicted criminal Cameron Slater has, in the space of a few days, gone from a position of ‘we do not speak of evil’ (meaning Peters) to micturating a stream of arguably defamatory ‘blog posts’ directing the foulest of personal abuse at Peters — just as he’s done with other National Party ‘enemies’ with whom he becomes fixated. (Cameron looks to me like someone with a little too much time on their hands. Perhaps he could sweep some leaves, trim some trees or water-blast his deck … now that he doesn’t have to train to lose a bike race.)

Convicted criminal Cameron Slater delivers ‘comments’ (retch) that, if not defamatory, are personally denigrating, abusive and insulting (shrieking all the while that National’s enemies Labour and the Greens are ‘nasty’. Such rich irony).

Like a dead rat stinking and rotting in a wall, convicted criminal Cameron Slater’s deceptive and one-eyed ‘reports’ (vomit) lower the tone of political discourse around him to something worse than goofy drunken sledging. He tells people he’s ‘mellowed’, and maybe that’s true, maybe it’s just pre-election jitters at work, but what he’s been writing lately (in my personal view) is inaccurate and vile, a lot of it.

Most of the time what he says doesn’t matter. That’s probably true about this time too, since, his attempted self-aggrandising fantasy life aside, convicted criminal Cameron Slater blows his dog whistle mainly to his racist, homophobic, Tory in-crowd. Although his (no other word for it:) bullying attempts to pick a fight/entrap politicians on Twitter strike me as ‘off ‘in a different way. He’s a stalker, but then, hasn’t social media made all of us that way, a little bit?

Convicted criminal Cameron Slater doesn’t easily tolerate opposing views, as we have seen. That’s a bad sign, in my opinion.

Then there’s his transparent sanctimonious double standard. One small example: emoting horror stricken outrage over ‘The rich deserve more’ stickers on National campaign hoardings but describing it as ‘funny campaign graffiti’ when a Labour MP’s billboards are defaced with the word ‘cock’ in the same manner.

I know some who write off convicted criminal Cameron Slater as a reactionary, clichéd, mindless, bought-and-paid for prejudiced Tory half-wit/robot with serious credibility issues … not enhanced by his multiple convictions for wantonly breaching court name suppression orders. I’ve never thought of him that way, although I agree the name suppression stuff was stupid of him, and there’s no question the guy is devious, publishes half-truths and pursues his vendetta against National’s enemies in a deceitful way.

But I have to say, his reflexive vomit on Peters, coupled with his obvious irrational and stupid hatred for Trevor Mallard — two thorns in the National Party’s side over many years — and the misleading, inaccurate hyperbolic crap he’s recently promulgated about the ‘Greens’ makes me question my previous favorable assessment.

Dedicated to James Meager.

– P