Following a missive from home, I decided to go in search of John Howard’s appearance on qanda last night. I had to go to youtube because stoopid ABC won’t let me watch iview from here. Anyway, good to know John Howard hasn’t lost his ability to make me so angry I can’t see straight.
Mr Howard, let me be clear…when I was part of the campaign for David Hicks to be given a fair trial, I never once claimed, nor even thought, that he was ‘a hero’. To say that I did is to be tricky at best and deceptive at worst. I was speaking out about his right to a trial, to a fair trial. I was arguing that he should be charged, that he should not be held without charge. And I said that he should not be subjected to torture while imprisoned.
I did not once say that he was a hero.
I know a lot of people who were campaigning on behalf of David Hicks and I don’t remember any of them describing David Hicks as a hero. I did, and do, think that his father was a hero, and perhaps I expressed that thought in a public way. So maybe you misheard me. Maybe when I said Terry, you heard me say David. Fair enough, you had a lot on your plate at the time, mistakes happen. If this is the case, please advise, and I will accept your apology unreservedly.
Otherwise, please stop saying, or even implying, that I have ever said David Hicks is a hero. It is not cool to misrepresent people and their opinions in this way.
While we’re at it, I’ll just remind Mike Rann that I still haven’t forgiven him when he did a similar thing . I never said that van Nguyen, a young man facing the death penalty in Singapore, should be compared to Florence Nightingale. I said that he should not face the death penalty because I believe that the death penalty is wrong in all circumstances and I do not qualify my opposition to the death penalty. I’m still extraordinarily mad with Mike Rann for saying the things that he did – it was completely unnecessary for him to say those things, and if he really was against the death penalty then he wouldn’t be undermining other people’s efforts to have it abolished.
Goodness, but I’m cross about those things.