Claire Bondin Bonello – she'd join Joseph's skip if it didn't make her too much like Marisa Micallef
Arlette Baldacchino (left): Claire Bondin Bonello thinks she isn't a racist
The absolutely tiresome Claire Bondin Bonello, who has built a career out of trying to become a media personality and failing miserably, not realising that this is primarily because her writing is utterly dull and her arguments are dead in the water, used her column in The Sunday Times yesterday to talk about her pet hobby-horse: how Daphne and Lou are like Manuel Cuschieri.
It is a pet hobby-horse shared by that other waster, Jacques Rene Zammit who, bored out of his mind in Luxembourg, pilots a remote-control blog about Malta and wonders why nobody bothers with it.
The difference is that to our Claire, as to her cohorts Josanne Cassar and Marie Benoit who work for the same newspaper as I do, as to Saviour Balzan of Malta Today, I am the Great Unmentionable.
“We will criticise her without mentioning Her Name.”
Pathetic.
Claire Bonello’s fixation is so great that it has even unbalanced her judgement. So the woman who wishes us to believe that she is liberal and progressive and so very AD has ended up debasing herself by plotting with her friend Arlette aka Letty Baldacchino, right-hand woman to Norman Lowell, in how best to have me found guilty of defaming Baldaccino by calling her a racist.
Is Arlette Baldacchino a racist, Claire? Come on, do tell.
Like Waster Jacques, you’re supposed to be with AD, after all.
Even better, write about it. Or do the decent thing and tell readers of your column why you don’t write about Arlette Baldacchino, Norman Lowell and Imperium Europa: you’re Arlette’s friend and lawyer.
———–
Because she doesn’t mention me by name (maybe she’s scared I’ll bite her), Claire Bondin Bonello mentions Lou Bondi instead. He’s had a blog for just a couple of months and already it’s acquired a readership that our Claire finds truly galling.
And so she told us, yesterday:
Sadly enough for the state of political discourse in the country, that’s exactly what some Nationalist exponents have been doing. We have seen the setting up of hate blogs which spew out a stream of scurrilous rumours, half-truths, and distortions.
The right to freedom of expression is being used as an excuse to denigrate political opponents and to attack relatives of public figures who are being dragged into the arena solely by virtue of their relationship with the public figures themselves.
Strange, isn’t it?
Taken out of context, and scotching the word ‘Nationalists’, you’d think that our Claire is here describing the Labour website tasteyourownmedicine, which only this morning reproduced her own article in toto, so pleased it is with what she said.
That should worry our Claire, but it doesn’t. As we have seen from her plotting with Arlette sive Letty, she doesn’t mind mixing with scum as long as it’s Against She Who Shall Not Be Named.
Claire Bondin Bonello, precisely as Josanne Cassar did a couple of weeks ago in The Malta Independent on Sunday, writes about ‘scurrilous blogs’ while completely ignoring the existence of that site because it suits her.
At least, I hope it really is only because it suits them and not because they have anything to do with it or know the anonymous people involved.
I have to say, though, that at this stage in my life, nothing will surprise me.
Claire Bonello and Jacques Rene Zammit appear to suffer from the delusion that support for AD (or rather, hatred for the Nationalist Party while demonstrating no such feelings about Labour) makes them ‘independent thinkers’ rather than as blinkeredly partisan as their man Manwel Cuschieri.
And then Claire Bonello wonders why she never really made it as a columnist, and why people say – as many are probably doing now when reading this – ‘Claire min?’
Daft arguments don’t help. Like Waster Jacques, she likes to compare me and now Lou Bondi to Manwel Cuschieri of Super One.
Because you know, it’s so damned obvious to everyone who reads Claire Bondin Bonello and Jacques Rene Zammit that those scum Daphne Caruana Galizia and Lou Bondi are as thick as two short planks, think that logic is a shop, have a vocabulary composed of around a hundred words, and are sub-literate with it.
So of course, we can’t take anything they say seriously, not like when we read our Claire, who seems to have given up on AD and is now devoting her time to giving ‘Joseph’ an easy ride.
You never know, if she’s really lucky he might give her one.
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She went to great lengths to tell us how national broadcasters and journalists should behave:
“Clause 19 of these standards states that such people “must be seen to be impartial. It is important that no off-air activity, including writing, the giving of interviews or the making of speeches, leads to any doubt about their objectivity on-air. If such presenters or reporters publicly express personal views off-air on controversial issues, then their on-air role may be severely compromised.
“It is crucial that in both their work with the public service broadcaster and in other non-public service broadcasting activities such as writing, speaking or giving interviews, they do not state how they vote or express support for any political party or express views for or against any policy which is a matter of current party political debate.”
Can I please ask if these same ethics are applicable to judges and magistrates?
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=131138
How is setting up a blog a machination? Blogs are free. Anyone and everyone can set one up.
The problem these people have got is that they don’t want to put their names to their real opinions.
Unable to deal with the fact that, unlike them, other people have the courage of their convictions, people like Josanne and Claire and even Jacques seek instead to find some ‘evil’ or unsavoury ulterior motive to the blogs like this one.
Claire Bonello tried to set up her own blog too – http://clairescomment.wordpress.com/
It couldn’t have been very popular, seeing that it never really got off the ground.
“Claire Bonello and Jacques Rene Zammit appear to suffer from the delusion that support for AD (or rather, hatred for the Nationalist Party while demonstrating no such feelings about Labour)”
You’re right about Claire, but Jacques has given Joseph Muscat anything but an easy ride. Jacques has been critical of the PL and particularly Joseph Muscat much more than he was critical of PN and/or Lawrence Gonzi. I remember he once asked the PL to ditch Joseph ASAP and try to get a decent leader before it is too late.
Isn’t she the one who was slapped in the face by Charles Polidano and then after making a whole fuss went for an out of court settlement?
I do wonder why, but can imagine.
What Bondin Bonello fails to mention is that Cuschieri was a high Labour Party official when conducting his programme – whilst Bondi is not a party official, nor is Daphne.
What Cuschieri said in his programme on the official Labour media represented official Labour policy and thinking.
What Bondi writes in his personal blog represents no one but himself. He certainly does not represent the Nationalist Party. Rather like a certain Caruana Galizia.
It looks like the skip will soon not be big enough. Maybe Joseph will need to rent a quarry for the purpose.
The first thing I do on a Sunday morning is read Mark Anthony Falzon’s piece. He can be witty and slick, oddly unnerved by Balluta buildings.
The next thing on my list is to check how thoroughly Claire Bonello goes through this blog.
She had a go at the Nationalists last week, playing down Gaddafi’s funding of the Labour Party. Why doesn’t she ask who’s funding the Imperium? Or would that compromise her fees?
I don’t know why you bother writing about these individuals, whose columns are not read because they are either too boring or too loaded with personal interests and issues.
Your article flatters them
The reality of 2013 is that AD, Norman Lowell and his mob will be in bed with PL. As the adage goes, ‘when you lie down with dogs you get fleas’.
In the days when I used to buy a hard copy of The Times, and usually read it cover to cover, Claire Bonello’s column was one of the few that I skipped.
I had reached the stage where her simplistic arguments, stating the obvious, cliches and generally poor (and sometimes completely faulty) reasoning bored me.
Nothing like Mark Anthony Falzon, who writes for the same newspaper.
Mark Anthony Falzon, Daphne Caruana Galizia, and the occasional column by Stephen Calleya. That’s about the sum of Maltese journalism.
Some years back, I used to contribute to The Malta Indepdent and I well remember Josanne Cassar lost in obsession for DCG. I can’t believe it’s still happening.
Kellha bzonn Clare MIN? kienet tajba daqs Daphne u Lou fil-kitba gurnalistika.
Daphne, you are giving these two persons free publicity which they do not deserve.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110912/local/pn-slams-sant-s-libyan-money-claim.384473
Alfred Sant seems to have joined PL/GhaddafiMLP in doing a Joe Stalin about their links with Ghaddafi’s Libya.
He also wrote a two-part article about Euro/Eurozone for The Times on the day that Moody’s downgrading was announced.
I am not into conspiracy theories but the timing was spot on. Reminds me of his Economist Intelligence Unit days.
These people seem to be trying very hard to build a world where you, Daphne, and Lou Bondi are the ones who have no right to write about public figures while tasteyourownmedicine.com does.
How sad.
I was told that Mr Alex Saliba (FZL) posted the link to that website on his Facebook wall ” by accident” and didn’t realize until afterwards.
If that is true, he’s either too stupid to read its content, or its opening message, or even its name, or he’s stupid enough to think that anyone would actually believe that it is possible to accidentally post website links on your Facebook page.
They will continue to build this fantasy world, rejecting reality, until that reality slaps them in the face.
I don’t know what that revelation is going to look like, but I sure don’t want to be around when it happens.
Could it be that she only specifically mentioned Lou Bondi because he is the one who wears the ‘impartial’ hat on state television once (or now twice) a week and you don’t?
[Daphne – No. She never mentions me because none of them do, while being obviously snide about me. They are torn between their obsessive compulsive fixation with anything I do or say, and the opposing need to seem to ignore me.]
I don’t recall you ever playing impartial, so you don’t deserve such criticism.
[Daphne – I am always impartial, Mr/Ms Nobody. You make the classic mistake of confusing the meaning of ‘impartial’ with that of ‘indifferent’. If I look at a political issue and see a mess on one side and something sensible on the other, I am going to say so. I cannot regard the two parties as equal because they are clearly not equal. To do so, I would have to be indifferent to the facts and indifferent also to what intelligent observation tells me. You are also confusing the role of a talk-show host and that of a columnist. A talk-show host doesn’t give his own opinions. He’s there to bring out the opinions of his guests. A columnist, on the other hand, is paid for his or her opinion. Columnists who sit on the fence fail precisely because of that.]
Bondiplus is Net TV material if you ask me.
[Daphne – The thing is, not to be rude or anything, but no one asked you. There are audience surveys to deal with these things. Television companies buy the programmes that up their ratings. End of story. What makes it NET TV material – the fact that the host votes PN? We all vote for one party or another, though to read what some people write, you’d think they don’t vote at all because ‘it’s dirty’.]
I don’t think he’ll get his message across playing the impartial when everyone knows that he’s not, people are not that stupid. And this without getting into the issue of whether the state TV should air such programs or not.
[Daphne – I think you’ll find that actually people ARE stupid and that it tends to be the stupid ones who reason like this. But again, no offence. I just find it tiring dealing with this kind of talk at the end of a long day.]
On the subject of impartiality, in principle we’re saying the same thing. What I meant is that impartiality (or the lack of) does not apply in your case hence you never have to play either part.
Using your own words “A talk-show host doesn’t give his own opinions. He’s there to bring out the opinions of his guests.”.
My comment about Lou Bondi is that he makes his political opinions pretty obvious and he keeps repeating them over and over again in his blog, etc. even after the Broadcasting Authority (not me) remarked that his infamous calculations on Joseph Muscat’s proposals were unprofessional and he had to air PL’s reply in the following programme.
I don’t think people are as stupid as you make them.
[Daphne – Oh, not people in general, certainly, but when you consider that 45% of the electorate voted for the return of KMB as prime minister in 1992, and something like 49% voted to retain the status quo in 1987, well then…brains are not our strong point, are they.]
I wouldn’t mind Bondiplus on Net TV, but on TVM I’d prefer talk-show hosts of the likes of, say, Reno Calleja.
[Daphne – RENO CALLEJA? You must mean Reno Bugeja. But you just don’t get it, do you. Reno Bugeja and Lou Bondi are different ‘products’. You might as well say that a newspaper should have just one type of columnist.]
Now you may tell me that Reno Calleja is pro PL. The point is, I don’t know, because he doesn’t make it obvious to anyone and doesn’t go boasting about it all over the internet. It’s more a question of preference, rather than stupidity, but to each his own.
[Daphne – That’s it, preference. The state tv channel has to cater for all.]
That’s the problem with pseudo-liberals. They have no idea what being liberal is, but think it’s a cool label.
So the pseudo-liberals believe that a talk-show host can’t have a political life, even if his talk-show programme is popular.
True liberals, if they don’t like the talk-show, switch to another channel.
Yesterday I read Joanne Cassar’s column about Facebook, parents and teenagers. She expressed your arguments about grown-ups and the effects of Facebook in a different matter, but too late.
Ms Benoit was actually taking photos last week of the bring-in-site skips on Birkirkara Road.
“We will criticise her without mentioning Her Name.”
Daph , are you by any chance Valdemort’s wife?
Sorry but I couldn’t help it!
Some three years ago, during the height of the last election campaign, I had written this letter to The Malta Independent:
“Oh, those green-eyed monsters!
Amanda Mallia
24 February 2008
From Ms A. Mallia
Reference is made to Lou Bondi’s letter (ToM, 22 February) regarding journalists’ silence following his treatment by the Labour (and pro-Labour) media, the bomb threat on my sister Daphne Caruana Galizia’s home, and the absolutely deplorable treatment of my nephew, a young man and a private citizen who had been provoked for 30 minutes by a cameraman and photographer.
Super One’s constant broadcasting of that news clip is nothing more than a form of incitement to hatred – political hatred and class hatred – and is a poorly disguised attack on his mother. We have come to this stage – persecuting the children to get at their parents.
What the Journalists Committee fails to realise, perhaps because some of its members are employed by political parties and that factor comes first in their order of priorities, is that it is not just Lou, my sister and my nephew who are the victims or the ones at risk here, but freedom of speech and democracy as a whole.
The fact remains that they are being treated in this unacceptable way because – love them or hate them – they both stick their necks out (“far enough to get slapped”, as one obnoxious journalist put it). Both do their jobs properly, sell well and have considerable audiences/readership. Those facts are undeniable, and perhaps this is the real cause of the lack of support from their colleagues. The green-eyed monster is raising its ugly head.”
http://www.independent.com.mt/news2.asp?artid=65494
Save a tree and you’re a hero, save a lizard and you’re an environmentalist…save a race and you’re a racist?
The Maltese are not a race, but Arlette Baldacchino and Norman Lowell can’t cope with that inconvenient fact.
They think they’re white.
Go back to the other scum at VivaMalta.
…..And take Josanne Cassar and her readers who are just as ignorant as her, with you.