Professionals in the Northeast were as tuned in to Tuesday’s Parliamentary hearings as soccer moms in the Midwest were tuned in to Sunday’s World Cup match. Where watching the match was a thrill a minute, however, watching the hearings was like watching white paint dry – with the only moment of excitement coming when a fly lands to take a shit.
But in my commentary previewing these hearings I predicted that the Murdochs and Brooks would do little more during their appearance than convey contrition:
Let me just say one sentence: This is the most humble day of my life.
This was how Rupert set the tone. It seemed terribly contrived when he interrupted James’s opening remarks to say this. But there’s no gainsaying that his body language spoke of a man—looking every bit his 80 years—who has been truly humbled by these developments.
In any event, this did not prevent him from insisting, according to script, that he knew nothing about the phone hacking. Nor did it prevent him from throwing unnamed News Corp executives under the bus, insisting that they let him down, that they betrayed him, and that they alone should “pay”. He made it clear, however, that he was not referring to his son or to Brooks, both of whom he implied were also betrayed.
In their own defense, James and Rebekah also insisted that they had no knowledge of, or complicity in, any wrongdoing at NOTW. Duh….
Accordingly, the fly-landing moment came when Rupert’s third wife, a Chinese-born 42-year-old named Wendi, leapt to his defense by landing a volleyball-like spike on the butterball head of a well-known prankster who attempted to smash a shaving-cream pie in his face.
Wendi is being universally praised – as if she were a tiger mom pouncing to protect her cub. But I can’t help thinking that she would not have felt compelled to do so if she were not married to a feeble old man – 38 years her senior – who clearly could not defend himself. Call me old-fashioned, but I would feel emasculated if my wife felt the need to protect me from a pie-wielding assassin.
Frankly, this episode only reinforced the fact that Rupert is just another rich old fool who thinks his gold-digging trophy wife married him for love. But I digress….
Not surprisingly, the media are spending more time reporting on who got creamed than on anything the witnesses said, which only demonstrates how truly un-newsworthy these hearings were. You’d think, though, that they would do a little reporting on the very serious security lapse this interruption represented.
But am I the only one who smells something fishy about this distraction? After all, it beggars belief that this guy, who was clearly dressed like a misfit in this setting (he was wearing a plaid, clownish shirt for Christ’s sake!), could get through Parliament’s phalanx of security with a foam pie in his possession, and then blithely walk past everyone in the select committee room and sock Rupert the way he did….
In any case, I will publish no more commentaries on this scandal unless the Justice Department uncovers similar phone hacking in America, which would make the Murdoch’s troubles in England seem like a petty consumer complaint by comparison.
Related commentaries:
UK phone-hacking scandal…