Wed 27 June 2007 - Bye bye golden wallet
So, John Laws is retiring. I liked Matthew Ricketson’s report, which talked about “a conga line of” praising politicians — surely referencing Mark Latham’s “conga line of suckholes”.
Lawsy might air on 71 radio stations around the country, but that doesn’t include any in Melbourne. I’d like to think we’re a bit more cynical (particularly after the Cash For Comment affair), and I’m not impressed at all by the conga line of Federal politicians who lined up to praise him on Monday. I suppose it was asking too much for any of them to tell the truth: on an estimated $8 million income, he’s not “everyman”, and the only reason the pollies suck up to him is the audience he commands.
Of all those who commented in The Age story, I agreed with 3AW talk host Neil Mitchell the most: “He has been quite brilliant in some ways, and quite frightening in other ways … The cash-for-comment time was a very bad era for talk radio.”