Scary Carey

I rushed home from a rather interesting group last night to not miss Enough Rope  in which Andrew Denton was interviewing Wayne Carey.

S said when I reminded her it was on "I'm not watching that rubbish!". Well after all it takes a lot to compete with Desperate Housewives and Money Lies and sex, or what ever it's called.

I dutifully watched fascinated, becoming increasingly bored by Carey trying to justify himself. It seemed to me that he thought he was going to try to and use this interview to tell a well-rehearsed story.

Since there had been much hype about it beforehand, Denton had had the opportunity to comment that he thought Carey still had serious issues. What was interesting was that although Denton is usually a very interactive interviewer my impression was that he sat back and let Carey hang himself. Not that he let him get away with things. And sometimes he asked questions like "When did you stop beating your wife?"...you can't win. Either you admit you once were a wife beater, or half the people who hear it  think ". He protests too much!"

Certainly his major defence was that the papers and the magazines were just lying through their teeth

Was Denton tendentious? I didn't think so. He seemed just to ask and sometimes push for clarification...So the New Idea didn't offer you $180,000 for your story...there was never any discussion of money...neither you nor your team talked money.

Now, by and large Denton doesn't use the sort of mud slinging tactic, so it makes it seem all the worse because the suggestion certainly was that there was more to this than met the eye.

But one commentator on the ABC website did suggest that Denton should have put or shut up...and he didn't.

It is interesting that on the Enough Rope  Guest book (here) most commentators are sad about Carey, but not negative towards him.

My impression is much more in accord with Denton's that this was a very sinister adn cynbical exercise.

I don't think it worked in Carey's favour, but some of the people have been fooled some of the time.

I have more sympathy with Nick D'Arcy, who like Mr Carey allegedly likes to drink to excess and then punch people's lights out.

The difference, maybe there is no differenece, but it could be that D'Arcy is 20 and at the beginning of a stellar career. Maybe there is some hope that he will learn his lesson. So perhaps it should not be, as St Kieran of the teeth says, "one strike and your out" but I certainly wouldn't be letting him have a second strike. Nor like Mr Carey, a third, fourth and fifth just because he's good at sport.

I want to be the  last to pretend that I am sinless when it comes to drinking too much, and nor do I pretend that I have not done anything that I am profoundly ashamed of. 

I just didn't think there was much that was sincere about what King Carey was offering us last night.