COMMENT: Paula Bennett has put together a sterling piece for the Whanganui Chronicle in which she responds to a person who appears to have had a crack at her over her weight and weight loss.
Now I say appears because I didn't see the original, and given this isn't actually about the original, I don't need to go seeking it. For the cleverness in the Bennett response is that it isn't actually about the original. It's a party political piece snuck in under cover of a response to the original.
And, to be frank, the original appears from what Bennett suggests, to be a petty, nasty little bit of work that attacks the person not the ball. I have no time for such behaviour.
Bennett begins by saying she sucks up a lot, ignores most of it, the cost of her weight loss operation was nothing like the figure quoted, the dress in the photo was, in fact cheap, and that as the spokesperson for women for National she's proud of her role.
But then the genius starts, it goes from a response to an election pitch, and notably what her and her party have done for women generally, and the country as a whole. Part of the overall pitch is a nugget of gold so bright Byron would have been proud.