If I had been subjected to the avalanche of personal abuse and character assassination that Gilmore has endured over the previous two weeks, I might well have contemplated suicide. UPDATED after Gilmore's resignation speech.
UPDATE: After Question Time in the House today (Tuesday), Aaron Gilmore made a considered speech, in which he expressed regret for the events which had ultimately led to his resignation from Parliament.
He apologised to the Prime Minister, his colleagues in the House and the National Party at large for any embarrassment his conduct had caused.
His words were without rancour, accusation or blame. They were greeted with applause from all members.
It was, in my view, a dignified exit.
Watch his resignation speech here.
It’s possible that only the Germans, whose language is full of nouns composed of (sometimes several) other nouns joined together, could have invented the term ‘Schadenfreude’. Schaden means harm and Freude means happiness or joy. So the two joined together can be roughly translated as ‘joy at other people’s misfortunes’.
There was, it seems to me, a significant degree of Schadenfreude in the nation’s response to the downfall of Aaron Gilmore. It was combined with the righteous indignation of a populace seemingly without sin and therefore more than willing to cast not just the first stone but a positive volley of stones. The Germans could no doubt produce an exceptionally long word to describe this phenomenon.
Prominent among the righteous were Gilmore’s former friends, colleagues and acquaintances a number of whom, preferring to shun the limelight, took to dobbing him in for a variety of past crimes, real or invented, via the honourable device of the anonymous leak.
But nowhere was joy more unconfined than among those exemplars of probity and propriety – the news media. The charge was led by TV3’s Paddy Gower, who could barely contain his excitement at such a treasure-trove of poor judgement and wickedness. He was assisted by the channel’s self-appointed avenging angel, the shrewish Rebecca Wright, whose performance at Gilmore’s 15-minute ritual humiliation before the media suggested she thought kicking a man already down and bleeding was actually recommended under Marquess of Queensbury rules.
(To be fair to the saintly Mr Gower and the spotless Ms Wright, I should perhaps note that I rarely watch One News, so there may well have been even more pious commentators there.)
But it was left to the Herald’s brilliant cartoonist, Rod Emmerson, to deliver the coup de grace to the worthless Gilmore. In the best traditions of cartooning during the Third Reich, fun would be made not just of Gilmore’s actions but of his appearance – he would be portrayed as a toad.
I took the trouble to look up the definition of the word in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary. It reads in part: 1. ‘Any of those amphibians that have a dry warty skin, walk rather than leap, and were formerly reputed to have poisonous attributes. 2. A repulsive or detestable person.’
Lest anyone miss the fun, the Weekend Herald devoted a generous half-page to Emmerson’s cartoon of a drunken and dishevelled Aaron Gilmore with the unambiguous caption ‘Waiter! One more for the Toad…’
On Sunday’s The Nation I commented that had I been subjected to the avalanche of personal abuse and character assassination that Gilmore had endured over the previous two weeks, amounting to the annihilation not only of his reputation but of his very raison d’être as a human being, I might well have contemplated suicide.
Later that day Gilmore resigned. Blaming ‘the intense pressure’ that media scrutiny had put him under, he said, ‘I am human.’ It was a definition of himself which he must have felt the need to reassert.
I doubt that these musings will find much popular support.
Gilmore is not an attractive personality – a boastful and bullying narcissist careless with the truth. But nor is he worthless. His reputation and career are now in tatters. It’s a heavy price to pay for getting drunk, throwing your weight around and telling a few porkies.
I feel just a little sorry for him. And I doubt that many of his detractors, least of all in the media, have themselves lived exemplary lives. It is one of a number of reasons why I never call myself ‘a journalist’.
Media trainer and commentator Dr Brian Edwards has retired from posting blogs at Brian Edwards Media.
