Sunday, January 11, 2009

We Forgive You

The Herald Sun, demonstrating its usual penchant for both hard news and unfailing honesty, today reports that Andrew O'Keefe has "apologised" for his drunken night out in December*.

The funny thing is that in the story which begins "TV host Andrew O'Keefe has apologised for his boozy Chapel St bender late last year", at no point is there any apology quoted. He says he is "in no way proud" of his behaviour, but the "apology" which the Herald Sun assures us he offered is not in evidence. Weird. Some sub-editor must have cropped it out, because the Herald Sun is not the kind of newspaper that prints dishonest teasers.

Even funnier is that the article lists a long stream of jokes and wacky banter that O'Keefe indulged in on his TV show, which seem to show that he vacillates between finding the incident "highly unedifying" and "high-larious". In fact, if we're keeping a scorecard of his public comments on the bender, it looks something like this:

Heartfelt expressions of contrition: 1

Madcap japes: 7

But the real "story behind the story" here is the mysterious question on everyone's lips: presuming O'Keefe DID offer an apology, who exactly did he apologise to? The Chapel Street pavement for crawling too heavily on it? Internet video-surfers for the poor quality of the footage? Just who is the wounded party here from whom O'Keefe is begging forgiveness?

Perhaps the Herald Sun will offer an answer after the results come in from their Voteline, which asks readers to call in and respond to the question, Do you accept Andrew O'Keefe's apology for his drunken binge?

And you can just tell Andrew O'Keefe is on tenterhooks waiting for the results of that poll. It would crush him if he were to find out that a solid majority of random strangers who were not in any involved with or harmed by his conduct of his private life were holding a grudge against him for it.

Lucky the Herald Sun is there to keep us apprised of developments in stories like these. Imagine how uninformed we would be if, instead of the Herald Sun, we had some pathetic excuse for a newspaper that constantly filled entire pages with retarded stories about nothing?

Phew!

*I do not consider it a coincidence that Andrew O'Keefe's life ran off the rails a mere two and a half years after he kissed my hand on national television.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That whole business is so retarded. I'm yet to hear of anyone who was actually offended in anyway. Seems the papers were just assuming people were to make the story.
Also, I think he's been drinking heavily since that day he kissed you, thinking of what he could have had and has lost.