This is a dark day in terms of how low the National Party are prepared to go. They are losing support with this form of smear, deviousness, stigmatisation. They have no friends here. They are losing support amongst garden-variety Kiwis who are not interested in the National Party taking up the cause of the media. The media is not made up of shrinking violets; they are key contributors to the democratic process through the fourth estate. They don't need Paula Bennett to conveniently forget the last nine years of history. They don't need Nick Smith to overlook his own patchy record on such matters pertaining to judicial appearances.