A few quick thoughts on “Shoe & A”

In case you missed it, some dude threw his shoes at former Australian PM John Howard on Monday night:

First up, let me say that I didn’t particularly like John Howard as PM (although I warmed to him slightly more after watching Q&A). Furthermore, I think invading Iraq was a very bad idea.

That said, I think it was highly inappropriate for that guy to throw his shoes at him. I’ve been a bit disappointed to hear comments like “It’s a shame he missed”.

What you don’t see on the video above is that the man asking the question (who later threw his shoes) was clearly never interested in hearing John’s response. John hadn’t got five words out before the man was shouting back at him.

It’s called Q&A not just Q. If you ask a question, you should expect to listen to a response. That’s how the show works. If everybody started throwing their shoes at the people they disagreed with a lot of people would have very sore heads. Eventually no one would actually go on the show anymore. And that would suck, because Q&A is one of the best things the media has come up with in the last 10 years.

I may lean slightly left of centre (politically), but I’m just as frustrated by the extreme anti-war and anti-logging campaigners as I am by the “immigrants take our jobs” crowd. These people are never interested in hearing informed debate or embracing the complexity of issues. But the joys of democracy means that they get a say, and we let them speak.

But please just speak, don’t throw your shoes.