Stuff is reporting that Hillary Clinton has been telling anti Helen Clark jokes!

The gaffe came in a chummy interview with American magazine Newsweek, when journalist Karen Breslau asked Mrs Clinton for a joke: “Here’s a good one. Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand: her opponents have observed that in the event of a nuclear war, the two things that will emerge from the rubble are the cockroaches and Helen Clark. [Laughs]“

Stuff is more amused by Clinton describing Helen Clark as the “former Prime Minister” even though she’s very much the current one.

Personally I think it’s very strange that an apparently serious candidate for the US presidency is telling jokes about the leaders of other countries. I mean, I know we’re not exactly allies any more, but we did send some symbolic troops to the wars she supported in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I wonder what she was thinking.

There are two political issues hitting the media at the moment.

The first is about Labour encouraging their campaigners to give out government pamphlets in an attempt to publicise the wonderful actions of Labour’s term in government. Personally I don’t have a problem with this and I think it’s a bit of a storm in a teacup - as long as the pamphlets aren’t being written for the purpose of campaigning.

The second issue is about how Labour wants to portray National as asset strippers. John Key cleverly spiked Labour’s guns with his declaration that National wouldn’t sell any state owned assets in their first term, and now Clark is reaching a bit by trying to say that it’s just because they’ll be selling them off in their second term (although I do wonder if she meant to imply that she thought National would not only win the next election but the one after it as well!)

But this post isn’t actually about these two issues. While I think everyone involved in both issues is spinning furiously for their own ends and that sometimes this results in people getting a bit carried away and the quality of the debate starts to slide into the gutter, I just want to say how delighted I am that both of these debates are actually about substantive policy issues.

The first is part of the ongoing debate about campaign financing, the second returns to the issue of what the national should own collectively against what should be owned privately. They’re not about someone seeing a prostitute, or when they went to church last, or whether they once did drugs twenty years ago.

I know we’re not immune from obsessing about all those things as well, but at least in this case we can be pleased that our “silly media beatups” and “manufactured political controversies” are about topics that do rightfully belong in the political sphere.

I’m fascinated by the Foreign Minister’s public opposition to New Zealand signing a free trade agreement with China.

By publicly opposing a major foreign policy initiative isn’t Winston Peters just demonstrating his own lack of power and influence? Doesn’t this mean that he’s Foreign Minister in name only?

Any time now I’m expecting Helen Clark to tell him to be quiet and play with his baubles while the adults get some work done.