Why he isn’t sticking his neck out on Brexit
You may have spotted this unintentionally hilarious tweet from Turdoch to Gove-a-Go-Go a few days back:
What struck me as odd initially was that this reflects my own philosophy on ethics – ‘a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you a friend’ – although by the age of 67 it does leave a chap with an intimate circle of chums, nothing more. However, what made me laugh really was the idea of Roop (a) having principles and (b) the verb thing about ‘overcoming’ friends. He was talking about Gove not himself of course, but the sad use of language there is pretty obvious.
The hypocrisy of The Digger’s pompous praise is further apparent in that this is precisely what he is not doing at the moment. The Slog has tweeted him thus:
Indeed, clues are emerging about where The Antipodean Hacker’s unprincipled power-networking among Principals is leading him at the minute. The old boy is denying it, but it’s as clear as a digital mobile messaging service that he is backing Mrs Clinton for the White House…and giving Fox News carte blanche to Dump the Trump.
As long ago as 2014, Murdoch shocked fellow rednecks on declaring he “could live with Hillary as president”. And eight years before that, Roop threw a personal rubber-chicken fundraiser for Killary’s Senatorial reelection campaign.
I think the key to this move lies in a Fortune Magazine interview some years back, when he said he’d support a Democrat for President, but “that would depend on the Republican candidate totally.” This is thinly disguised code for “Trump doesn’t need me, so it’s got to be Hillary.
Which is OK for Yankdig, because when it comes to US/Murdoch foreign policy, Clinton is right down the fairway on message and heading for the pin…even if it is in a grenade. In particular, after her indoctrination spell at the State Department, she’s a Born Again Seven Regime Changes for Seven Oilstates enthusiast.
As America’s leading advocate of email privacy, Clinton will also have to be sure and change that cellphone code if she’s going to cosy up to the man who hacked a nation, but either way these developments go some way to explaining Murdoch’s currently rather shy approach to opining about Brexit.
Because the thing is – just like his stalwart supporter Mayor Borisconi – Rupert Murdoch is ‘conflicted’: and conflicted is the new Blackguard masquerading as Whitehat. You see, Hillary is, I’m told, virulently opposed to a Brexit, on the grounds that (she feels) the freedom contagion following such an outcome would hasten the European Union’s demise…and rip up all her NATO gung-ho plans.
And Mr Murdoch is keen to stay on the right side of the woman he’s sure will become the next President of the United States.
His need for this revolves around a number of developing eventualities. Stay tuned…and remember, American friends, if you’re anti-Establishment, then Sanders and Trump are it.
Closely related earlier at The Slog: More to Brexit than meets the eye
The Slog 