Armchair Critic has awarded his blogger's gold medal to Key, and Key's earned it, in my opinion..
"Which means the winner of the gold is John Key, for going to the game, and not going to the funeral.Ultimately it is the Prime Minister who decides to deploy troops to combat zones. It is therefore beholden upon the Prime Minister to do the right thing by these troops. When they are killed in action the PM must attend the funeral. It's that simple.
I do understand that politics is hard on families, especially children. But like the duty to the troops, it's part of the job. Anyone who thinks politics is easy has not had much to do with it. And it's been that way for ages, anyone who is not up for putting their duties to the country ahead of their family should not run for public office. It's that simple.
I have a guiding principle - you should always attend funerals. Because the dead only die once; it's not like you can attend their next funeral. Whereas the living will, in all likelihood, be here tomorrow."
5 comments:
Since when was this rule instituted
"It is therefore beholden upon the Prime Minister to do the right thing by these troops. When they are killed in action the PM must attend the funeral. It's that simple."
The PM of the day did not turn up when my Great Uncle's three sons died serving, or at any of my other serviceman relations funerials
Trying to make a funerial a political statement is about as low as you can go
Personally I only go to the funerials of people I think would attend mine, which keeps the number down
War is inherently political, Raymond, so any statement about it must therefore be political.
I take your point about overt political statements at funerals, whether they are for people killed serving their country or not, it's inappropriate. In my opinion, going to watch the baseball instead of going to a soldier's funeral is low, especially for the PM. It's worse than that, our PM could have done both, he chose not to. That's the lowest of the low. And it's a political statement.
To clarify my statement about PM's attending funerals of soldiers killed in the line of duty, could the PM of the day have reasonably been expected to attend the funerals of your relatives killed in action? If you are referring to the major conflicts of the 20th century (and don't doubt that many of my ancestors and relatives served and died in these conflicts too) I am confident you possess the intellect to see the fundamentalbdifferences between the two situations. I'm not OK with the PM attending the recent funerals for soldiers killed in action. Are you?
Last sentence should read
"I'm not OK with the PM not attending the recent funerals..."
It was interesting to read the comments made before his death, by one of the soldiers who was killed in this latest incident, strongly critical of Key and his decision to watch baseball in America, rather than attend the funerals of the two soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
Key's supporters claim that his visiting the families earlier is enough, but I don't accept that either. Key has adopted a role as Prime Minister and must respect the demands that brings. Picking and choosing which of the fallen soldiers' funerals he will attend, depending on a game of baseball in America, is inappropriate Prime Ministerial behaviour.
There seemed to be a more-than-usual amount of indignant mouth frothing/spittle emanating from those defending Key's decision to be at Max's game.
I tired of reading the assumption that the parents of the slain soldiers, more than anyone, would understand how important "family time" was, and that they would approve.
Not being of a psychic bent, I for one, wouldn't dare to be so presumptuous.
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