Timeline of a short political career

Here’s a timeline on Melissa Lee’s political career arc as measured by the Man in the Street:

• 2007: “Who’s Melissa Lee?”
• 2008 Maiden Speech:  “Oh, who’s this Melissa Lee then?”
• 2009, voted world’s 56th sexiest politician: “Hubba hubba! Who is Melissa Lee!”
• 2010: “Who’s Melissa Lee?”

The reason she’s in a tailspin is not because what she said on Wednesday night was “offensive,” or “racist,” or anything else along those lines: it was because what she said was something you can’t apologise for – for being a lightweight.

The silly woman went to the meeting utterly unprepared, and almost completely uninformed about the issue she was there to "debate."  The meeting was nowhere near as hostile as has been claimed (as John Key suggested all day yesterday), and nor was she under pressure from people there who were going to lose their houses (as she claimed last night on Close Up).

No, apart from the usual political flunkies you get at every election meeting, the audience was composed mostly of people who had followed the issue of this motorway for years, who wanted to hear the details of Steven Joyce’s decision, and to have explained the reasoning for it. Quite simply however she hadn’t done her homework – so, when she was placed on the spot and asked to make her best argument for Steven Joyce’s motorway proposal, instead of consulting the facts she should have had with her she blithely repaired to something she'd only half heard a few days before.

And then when called on it at the meeting, she pointed the blame for her silly statement to the policeman she claimed to have told her what she'd so obviously misunderstood.

You see, if she was the sort of person who does her homework, neither this nor the making of her video would have tripped her up.

Fortunately for you, the reader, Liberty Scott has put together the briefing on the Waterview motorway that Ms Lee should have insisted on before showing up on Wednesday night.  Read Bullshit about the Waterview Connection, and be more informed than four-fifths of the Mt Albert by-election candidates.